


Marble

by TheClayrSawMe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:31:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 64,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheClayrSawMe/pseuds/TheClayrSawMe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco forever stands on the edge of the forest. In the rain, in the sun, in the snow. Harry tries to save him, because in the end he just can't help himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Grief

Minerva first told him, slightly offhand and flustered about something else, a few days after the end of the battle.

She'd insisted he'd stay away from everything, all the reparations, healing the wounds, counting the dead, for a while – let others do the hard work, since he'd 'done so much already' – but of course he couldn't. He'd been away from the castle too long; such a long time away from home. He wasn't going to leave it now.

Even with a missing courtyard and the identical, permanently sombre expressions of everyone he passed, he was still glad to be there once more. But what she said stuck in his mind, and it proved to be more pervasive than even his need to mourn.

 

* * *

 

 

He first saw him a week after he'd first heard of what happened, when he'd finally succumbed to the need to seek him out. He thought he caught his first glimpse of him from just beyond the castle, a glint of white that shone out in the grey and black and green that he hated, the sight of a forest like the one burned forever onto his brain from exposure and he was never going to go camping again as long as he lived.

At first, as he walked, it wasn't real to him – the shape too indistinct, the iridescent, gleaming grey too out of place this side of the grounds and with only the kin of Dumbledore's tomb to keep it in company of kind for miles around.

But when Harry reached a few steps away, it slammed into his head like a Crucio and he jerked himself sideways to vomit loudly onto the scorched earth.

There Malfoy stood. He struck a sad, eternal pose of shock and defensive movement, his arms reaching out, frozen, as he shielded his face. The hairs of his furrowed eyebrows were set in gentle ridges against his brow, his once alabaster skin now ironically more so than ever before. And would always be so, if what Minerva said was true.  
Stuck in the same place, in the same pose, with the same fear. Forever. There for children to avoid, or mock; there to be rained on, battered by the cold and the wind and to see the seasons through without ever feeling the warmth of summer or the bite of snow.

Harry retched again, and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

Draco was handsome even rendered clumsily in marble. The sheen of the polished surface let the sunlight glint off sharp cheekbones, and the solid, constant colour of the stone gave him an ethereal quality that Harry would never have associated with him in life.

Life, Harry thought. Malfoy was dead. And not even the kind of dead he could metabolise, move on from; no, the git had to go and be preserved for eternity, right in the back garden of the only place in the world Harry felt safe, just to ruin that for him too.

Harry squinted at the glow of the setting sun, first on the horizon then in the reflection on Malfoy's suit jacket, whipped out at an angle from his lean body as if caught by a strong wind and held there.

I'm sorry, Malfoy, he thought.  
  


* * *

 

 

Harry stared up at the canopy of his bed as tears silently slid from the corner of his eyes, until the dampness of them reaching his hair and curling in the shell of his ears became too irritating to stand. He eased gently into sitting up, grunting as the movement jarred his recently mended ribs.

Minerva had offered him the empty quarters used by the scores of DADA professors Harry had seen across the years. No, she'd offered more than that; she'd suggested he take them permanently, along with the role. She asked him to be the new Defence professor.

Harry had refused the rooms, but he'd had no idea what to say about the position. Hogwarts was home. He knew that even as he looked out into the emptiness of his old dormitory room, felt the dull ache as he observed Ron's old bed and thought of Fred. He should have leapt at the offer, made it home for as long as he was needed, stroll the halls in his hundredth year with a beard long enough to rival Dumbledore's.

And, all those years, look out of the window and see the grounds, see where so many friends, so many children, died for a cause he brought to their doorstep? Stand in front of fresh-faced first years, and see the pale, lifeless faces of their brothers and sisters, bloodied bodies laid out on the very stone floors they'd skipped across...

Look out of a window and see Draco Malfoy, preserved for an eternity in perfect, vein-less marble.

Harry stood, and shuffled over to the window. A low, muggy fog hung over the grounds, and he didn't know whether the glint of white that flickered here and there in the mist was his mind playing tricks on him. Minerva said he was dead. Dead, and gone, leaving the most harrowing type of corpse.

Harry didn't know whether he'd stay at Hogwarts or not. As he pressed a damp palm against the soft whorls of the glass pane, he silently wished that Malfoy had had that choice.

 

* * *

 

 

'Hello, Harry,' Hermione smiled as she teetered over the crumbled stone that remained of the court yard. Harry echoed it weakly, moving over to relieve her of an excessive load of bags and books and help her gingerly navigate the ruins. 'Been busy?'

'Not really,' Harry shrugged, peering into a bag as they walked together into the castle. 'McGonagall's been trying to keep me away from the reconstruction. I think she thinks I'm a bit delicate.'

'Well, Madame Pomfrey did say you had to rest,' Hermione admonished, reclaiming her bags as they advanced to the library. 'Perhaps she wants you to avoid ending up under another archway.'

'I'm pretty sure I know where I went wrong,' Harry protested, making her smile. 'I just don't like feeling useless.'

'Harry, you know she thinks you've done enough already,' Hermione used her specially provided key to unlock the huge library doors, and they both leant their weight into one hefty panel of wood to ease it open with an echoing creak. 'I agree, as it happens.'

'Then I think you've done enough too,' Harry countered, hooking the door to the wall. 'What are you even doing?' He asked, smiling winningly when Hermione gave him an exasperated glare.

'I've been allowed access to some of the Ministry collection, so I can research the original wards placed on Hogwarts,' she explained with an air of quiet authority, reverently laying out worn, musky smelling books on a study table. 'They didn't want me to take them, but the Headmistress insisted.'

'The original wards?' Harry slumped into a chair, inspecting the closest tome with interest.

'Yes,' Hermione sighed, pulling nervously at her hair. 'Professor McGonagall suspects we might need to do a bit of repairing work. I don't know how, though,' she shot Harry a worried look. 'If it took four very powerful witches and wizards to cast them in the first place, I don't see what good I'll do.'

'I bet you could do it in your sleep,' Harry smiled when she flushed and swatted him on his arm. 'Tell me if you need any help. I'm not far off going around the bend.'

'I'll assume by that you mean practical help, and not research help,' Hermione chuckled at his sheepish grin. 'Alright. It might keep you out of trouble.'

'It's not like I meant to knock the thing over,' Harry muttered, flipping through the book and holding back a sneeze when he accidentally released a cloud of dust.

'I'm sure no-one means to end up under a block of stone, and break half their bones,' Hermione sniffed, 'but you managed it anyway.'

'I'm fine now.'

'Well, maybe staying away for a while is for the best.'

 

* * *

 

 

Harry sat on the cloak he'd draped over the damp grass, back purposefully turned to the castle. Malfoy's statue stood at the corner of his eye. He could choose not to look at the castle, or the statue, but not both, unless he wanted to take a long muddy walk to the opposite side of the grounds. He tried lying back and looking at the soft blue-grey of the sky, but the hard ground made his shoulders sting with pressure.

With where he sat, Malfoy's back was turned to him; the edge of his coat shone a bright, eye-searing white, and the low sun cast a long, sharp shadow across the blackened ground around him. Harry was too far away to see him in detail, and too close to be able to look away.

The pose was the worst part, Harry thought, or maybe the expression. Pained, desperate. Minerva said another Death Eater had caught him trying to flee with his parents during the final battle, when Harry had only had one thing on his mind. The senior Malfoys had been found lying, lifeless, on the hill. Draco had been special.

Minerva said they'd tried to move him. She'd said it was impossible; a force greater than its weight was keeping that statue fixed to the ground. She'd said a man from the Ministry had come to see it for proof of Draco's death. He'd suggested they destroy it.

Maybe it was better off like that; smashed into a thousand shards of white and grey, buried in the ground with a headstone in a graveyard like normal and not there, solitary, its own horrible, grotesque memorial. But Harry couldn't imagine having the strength to do it. He tried to picture pointing his wand at that face, looking into those warped features and echoing that feeling of fear in his heart, and casting Confringo. Harry's stomach churned.

He stood up, letting out a low hiss as his leg twinged with the effort.

 

* * *

 

 

'Getting anywhere?'

'Maybe,' Hermione all but grunted from her position slumped over on the desk. 'Not as far as I'd wanted to in three days. I have discovered something quite useful – a kind of diagnostic charm for buildings. It's just very reliant on adaptation for scale and the spell formula is not something I've encountered before.'

'You say a different word for big and little buildings?' Harry furrowed his eyebrows, and Hermione laughed.

'Kind of,' she smiled, stretching back and sighing. 'I'll need Professor Flitwick's help, I believe, but he's busy at the moment.'

'I saw,' Harry agreed. 'Levitating the pillars back into place. Something I could be doing,' he added grumpily.

'And you could end up back under the brickwork for your trouble,' Hermione patted his hand. 'You're still supposed to be resting, might I remind you.'

'Neville's not resting,' he retorted grumpily.

'He should be,' she replied. 'If it helps, next time I see him, I'll nag him about it.'

Harry chuckled, imagining Hermione's berating tone and wagging finger in Neville's bemused face. 'Thanks, that would help.'

'What have you been doing, if not resting?'

'I have been resting,' Harry's tone was indignant. 'I've spent a lot of time on the grounds, near the forest.'

'I haven't really been out on the grounds. Too busy in here,' Hermione said absently as she rifled through her notes.

'You'd know if you had been.' Harry rubbed a hand across his face.

'What do you mean?'

'Never mind.'

 

* * *

 

 

Harry had finally worked up the courage to go near him again. It. Him?

Harry stopped a few paces away, and took a couple of deep breaths. Whether it was an it or a him didn't matter. There was no point in getting into the finer points of souls and empty bodies. Malfoy was dead.

He's dead, he thought again, as he shuffled the last few steps forward. Dead dead dead. Dead, even though there he was standing there in front of him, dead even though there were his eyes widened in shock and his hand reaching out and dead even though Harry could touch him.

The marble was horrible. The paleness rendered him a ghost, but a tangible, physical one that wouldn't just float away. At least Malfoy as a ghost would tell him to stop staring, would call him a git and make him leave, because as much as he wanted to Harry couldn't bring himself to turn and walk away.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered, watching the red and pink of the sun ease across the shine of the stone, turning grey to colour and maybe Harry could pretend he was alive again. 'I really am.' A soft, peachy tone slid across one sloping cheek, and Harry's eyes stung.

'You have a new cousin, you know,' he burst out, jutting his chin to the floor and breathing deeply for a minute. 'I mean, a second cousin, or something. Tonks – Nymphadora – she was your Aunt Andromeda's daughter. She had a baby with Lupin. You'd hate that,' he gasped out, stuck in the jarring space between a desperate laugh and a sobbing cry.  
'Blacks mixing with werewolves.'

Harry turned in a tight circle. 'He's called Teddy,' he stated simply, as if that would explain everything. 'He's a metamorphmagus, like his mum. He's -'

Harry choked, spluttering a sob, and leant forward with his eyes screwed shut. He gulped a few breaths before straightening again. 'He's beautiful. His gran has him – Tonks and Remus died, in... in the battle. Like you did. They made me his god-father.'

This was getting too hard, but he felt like he had to do it. 'Fuck, Malfoy – when I first heard about you, after, I – went to see him that day, and when he saw me... When he saw me, he turned his hair blonde. I don't know...'

Harry began to cry then, sobbing in juddering, desperate gasps as his stared unseeingly at the ground beneath his feet.

 

* * *

 

 

Sunset again. Harry didn't know why he'd come, or why this time of day. It didn't make it easier.

'Hi,' he shuffled his feet awkwardly in the dirt. 'Saying I'm sorry doesn't seem enough. Yeah, I know, 'of course it isn't, Potter',' he tried to mimic the haughty tone in his head, then felt grimy and unpleasant.

'I can't sleep,' he rushed out in a gasp. 'I mean, I had nightmares before but now I can't even sleep. To be honest, I keep seeing you. I can see you from my window,' Harry tilted his head and rubbed aggressively at the side of his neck. 'But, I mean, I can see you when I close my eyes.'

Should he really be admitting this all to the statue of someone who hated him when he was alive? This was ridiculous. Maybe Harry was going around the bend.

'I'd swap places with you if I could.' Harry could almost hear the snort of derision in his ear. 'No, really. I...' He coughed, and watched the breeze rustle the leaves of a tree just over the line of Malfoy's outstretched arm. 'I know you hated me. I – I didn't hate you. You didn't deserve this. I mean, no-one deserves this, but you really didn't.'  
Now he wasn't even making any sense. 'McGonagall wants me to teach Defence,' he mumbled, rubbing at his damp eyes. Well, that didn't help. 'It would make sense. I haven't got any NEWTS, so... A job elsewhere might be hard.'

Sure, Potty, the Malfoy in his head sneered. Hard for the Chosen Twat to get a job.

'I know, I sound like an idiot,' he took a gasp of air. 'I don't know if I could stand seeing you every day, okay?' Harry bit his lip, hard enough to draw out the copper taste of blood. 'I don't know if I could walk around like everything is fine while you're stood out here like this. Everything isn't fine while you're out here, like this, is it.'

The wind picked up, snapping together branches and whistling through the edge of the forest, weaving its way around the trunks of the trees. Harry stared into the deepening dark of it for a moment, imagining himself emerging from the gloom, eleven years old again and a frightened Malfoy in tow.

'But – I don't want you to just be left here.' He shoved his hands into his pockets with unnecessary force, and made himself look the statue of Malfoy in the face as he snorted in his breath erratically through his nose. 'I know – it's stupid. You're dead,' he snapped to himself. 'You're dead – why the hell did you have to – only you, I swear, Malfoy,' Harry barked, scraping tears away from his face with the cuff of his jumper. 'Only bloody arrogant, superior you would not die like everyone else – would end up a fucking statue!'

Immediately Harry's stomach hollowed out, and he felt despairingly, hauntingly sad. 'You should have had a chance.'


	2. Honest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this point this fic will be best understood when able to view italicized text.

Harry roused to a soft noise in the Common Room beyond his dormitory, since he had neglected to shut the door that would have otherwise muffled it. He felt the fleeting grip of sleep fade away much too quickly, and his back and head ache at the loss.

Easing his legs over the edge of the bed, he rubbed his eyes roughly with his fingertips, before groping blindly for his spectacles. The soft light glinting through the window told him it was still early, and the sun still rising, and he squinted at the dusky haze as it crept through the glass and across the worn wooden floorboards. Harry heaved a deep sigh.

Investigation into the noise revealed to him the sight of Hermione as he stumbled awkwardly down the last few steps of the stairs, ruffling his hair and yawning.

''Mione, it's like five in the morning.' Hermione started slightly at the sound of his voice, twirling her wand over the fireplace to fan the flame and spinning round to greet him.

'I know, sorry. I didn't mean to wake you.'

'No, that's fine. Just, why are you here at five in the morning?' Harry shuffled over, catching his bare toes on the edges of the many rugs that decorated the floor. 'Is everything okay?'

'Yes, of course. Sorry,' she apologised again, looking back into the fire. 'Well, as okay as it can be. I just wanted to read up here instead of the library, since it's so cold down there...'

'What was wrong with home?' His question caused her to look up sharply, and Harry tried to suggest with his face that he wasn't being accusing or angry. 'Is everything...'

'They still don't remember me very well,' she sighed, shoulders drooping as she looked down. 'Most of the time it's fine, but every now and then..' Hermione ran a hand through her hair. 'My mum looks away sometimes, and when she looks back it's like she's never seen me before.' One of the books she'd stacked on a table fell over with a thud, and they both glanced at it. 'I would go to Ron's, but...'

'No, I know,' Harry soothed, moving over to wrap his arms loosely around her, hearing her sigh into his shoulder. 'I'm happy to see you. I just don't want you to kill yourself with working,' he smiled sadly into her hair.

'I suppose we both just want to do something.'

* * *

'Hello again.'

Harry zipped up his jacket as the breeze carried across a cold flash from the lake surface, and stared at Malfoy's alabaster brogues.

'I slept a little last night, but not much,' he muttered to the ground, moving his hands to keep them warm in his pockets. 'Hermione woke me up at dawn. By accident, I mean – she's not sleeping either, I think, and she's pretty much obsessed with this warding thing. I'm worried about her.'

He looked back at the castle, and heard the slightest rustles of activity despite the emptiness and solitude of the grounds; he could see only him and Malfoy. He could always see Malfoy.

''Ron's, well... You don't care.' Harry looked the statue in the eye then, and frowned. 'You don't care about Hermione either. Didn't – didn't care.' He was pretending Malfoy was something he wasn't, a friend or a sympathetic ear. Malfoy hated his friends; he'd laugh at their troubles. They seemed nothing, next to death.

'You're right. At least they're not gone, I guess. Like you are, which is why talking to you is stupid,' he admonished himself. 'Maybe I'm making the best of a captive audience. You wouldn't have stood there five seconds if you were alive,' Harry chuckled humourlessly.

A large rook flew low overhead, and swooped to perch quizzically on a nearby branch. Harry and it observed each other for a moment. 'Minerva wants me to get back to her soon – so she knows whether to look for someone else.'

The rook cawed harshly in response, and hopped about the tree, giving Harry and his unusual companion a suspicious glance every now and then. Harry felt the irritated need to scare it off. 'I kind of wish I could ask your advice. I haven't talked to Hermione about it.'

The rook flew noisily away. Good riddance, Harry thought.

'I'm going to go see Teddy, tomorrow,' he smiled at the landscape. 'I just – I want him to feel like he has a family, you know. And not a crap one, like mine,' he added. 'But, I know you can't replace parents who love you. Like you have. Had.'

Harry turned and walked back to the castle.

* * *

'We've never really been at Hogwarts during summer before. Is it nice on the grounds, this time of year?'

'Not really, no.'

* * *

'I don't really want you to be here, when school starts again. I can just see the kids, you know, hanging scarves on you, trying to push you over...' Harry sighed. 'You don't deserve that.'

He scuffed his old, wrecked trainers on the new, fresh grass around Malfoy's feet. 'Minerva says you can't be moved but I think we should try again. I don't know, maybe put you somewhere quiet in the castle, like Dumbledore did with the mirror of Erised. Erm, that's this big old mirror that showed you what you wanted most in the world.'

Harry didn't need to explain that, since Malfoy wasn't really there and he himself knew already. So why did he? 'Ron saw himself as Head Boy, and Quidditch captain and everything. I saw my parents. Dumbledore said he saw a new pair of socks, but I'm pretty certain that wasn't true.'

But then again, the old man had been a bit strange. 'I've got no idea what you would have seen. We didn't really know each other at all, did we?'

The sun began to sink before the horizon, painting Malfoy in colours of deep warmth and light. 'We only saw the bad sides. I saw how you had to try to kill him. I... I cast that spell on you.'

Harry breathed deeply, eyes on the sunset. 'I'm sorry – really, really sorry for that. I didn't know what it would do. I found it in an old potion's textbook, that turned out to be Snape's, in the end.'

Would he be able to pour out his soul to a statue, if that statue had been of Snape? Probably not. 'You went through a lot. I didn't help much.'

* * *

'Hermione's worked out this diagnostic spell with Flitwick – she says she can use it to find the damage in the castle wards,' Harry's tone was chatty as he shuffled to and fro. Hermione had burst into the dormitory that morning, hair flying and a genuine, relieved smile on her face. Picturing it in his head made him smile. 'Then I can finally do something useful by helping fix them. They stopped letting me move the stonework around when I ended up crushed under an archway,' he shook his head at himself as the smile turned sour.

'Neville got caught too, but he only broke his leg.' Harry hadn't been so lucky. Pomfrey had nearly howled with shock and concern when they'd levitated him into the infirmary. 'We both fixed up quickly, but my ribs still ache a little every now and then.'

The smile disappeared altogether. 'I need to decide if I'm staying here, soon. I'd have to work on lesson plans, and homework...' And he'd probably still make a terrible teacher. It wasn't really fair, to inflict him on other students. He'd be mad to do it. 'If I say no, then you might get lonely.' Harry could almost hear the harsh laugh he'd get in response to that. Malfoy would probably rather jump into a crate of blast-ended skrewts before requesting Harry for company.

'Maybe if you were here, you could teach too. Slughorn wants to retire again at the end of the year. With the two of us, Gryffindor would have no chance at the house cup – I'd give them points, and you'd take them away again.'

Harry smiled at the image of Malfoy in professor's robes. 'You'd be like the next Snape, but with better hair.' His eye caught Malfoy's frightened face again, and the smile vanished.

* * *

Harry had just shuffled into the cold protection of the castle walls when a hand on his shoulder made him jump. 'Hi, Harry.'

'Oh, yeah, hi.'

'Is that who I think it is?'

Harry nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the rough stone floor. 'Malfoy.'

'Oh, Harry. I'm sorry.'

* * *

'I told Minerva I'd do it,' he said to Malfoy's sharp, jutting elbow, as the chatter and fluster of wildlife in the forest grew quieter and the sun dissolved into the grey blue of the lake. 'She asked me again at breakfast. And – I saw you, and I said yes.

'I don't know why – I could really use help right now. It wouldn't be fair to ask Hermione so I won't. I'd be a shit teacher if she had to hold my hand the whole time.'

Harry could see a flicker of white, that pearly opalescent Malfoy white, swimming around the edge of his watery eyes. If he squinted maybe he could pretend to himself he was alive again, sneering and shaking his head.

'If we'd been friends, I'd ask you. I wish we'd been friends. When we were eleven - everything was so black and white. If you hadn't been so bloody snobby about Hagrid, maybe – maybe I'd have been Slytherin, too.'

Harry walked in a tight circle, and paused to watch the light flow over the horizon, and splash up the sides of the surrounding mountainous landscape. 'I'd ask you, and you'd be honest.'

Harry could hear it, and his chest hurt. Of course you'd be a shit teacher, Potter.

'I'll be an awful teacher,' Harry agreed. 'But I can't just leave you here alone.'

* * *

'Working on your lesson plans?' Hermione joined him in the den-like alcove of books Harry had created in the library.

'I was – I guess I got a bit distracted. Some lessons are just as boring the second time around,' Harry smiled at her, flicking aimlessly through his book as she re-arranged the table and sat down next to him, peering over his shoulder.

'What did you get distracted by?' She asked, as she picked up one of his discarded textbooks and examined the cover.

'Levitating charms. Um, powerful ones.' Hermione looked at him in silence for a moment. 'Minerva told me they'd tried to move him.'

Hermione studied his eyes, brow furrowed. 'Why is it so important to you?'

Harry sighed. 'I really don't know.'

* * *

'I'm terrified by the idea of school starting,' Harry mumbled to Malfoy's static jacket. 'I've never been more scared by kids. I just know I'm going to fuck this up. You'd probably agree.'

Harry had less than a week until the first of September came, and he was sat right up at that table. Looking at all those faces. He felt sick just thinking about it.

'I've got everything sorted, at least. Mrs Tonks knew where Remus had left his old stuff, so that was pretty useful. I just hope one of them just doesn't end up injured or something... I guess you'd know about that.

'Hagrid did say you shouldn't insult Hippogriffs,' Harry admonished the statue, before catching himself and blushing at the stupidity of it. 'Not that that matters. I'm sorry to tell you Buckbeak got away in the end. I might have had something to do with it.' He coughed awkwardly.

'If you were here, I'd ask how bad that scarred,' Harry looked into the woods, and imagined Buckbeak's powerful front legs, claws scraping across the exposed roots of the trees. 'Hagrid – he really tried, but... some of his ideas weren't the safest.'

The light had all but disappeared, now, and the evening air took a dip in temperature, influencing Harry to stuff his hands in his jeans pockets for warmth. His thumb caught in a hole, and he thought about the stuffy, dark robes he'd gone to Diagon Alley with Mr Weasley to buy. He'd seen the man look sadly at a bright set of business robes, and he knew they were both thinking of Fred.

'I researched moving you. I didn't find much, but – there must be something. It's stupid – I just, I don't think I could stand seeing you out here in the snow. I know you wouldn't be able to feel it or anything – look, I know you're not here. That that's not really you. It's just.. It's not right.'

* * *

'Hermione – you'd never believe – she gave me a bloody leaflet about survivors' guilt. A fucking leaflet. Did you know the Ministry did leaflets? I didn't,' Harry paced to and fro, glancing up every now and then to look everywhere but Malfoy's face. 'She just slides it over to me and says 'you don't have to spend every night out there, Harry'.' He tried to mimic her voice, but his voice cracked, still sore from crying. His eyes flicked, looking everywhere, seeing that fucking light shining across Malfoy's fucking awful white terrified face.

'I do know that – I know this is weird! It's not like I don't see you and wonder what I'm doing. She tried to make me feel guilty about it – all, 'what if the children see you'! She just doesn't...'

Harry stomped away, jerking undecided mid stride and striding over to the edge of the forest. He eyed a tree, seething. Then he punched it.

Hand dripping, droplets of blood dancing down his fingers to soundlessly fall free from the tips, Harry returned to his haunting statue, and restrained himself from punching it, too.

'I – it's a fucking ridiculous name. 'Survivors' guilt' – should I... should I not feel guilty? You didn't deserve this any more than the rest of us – maybe if I'd just seen you, helped you... Malfoy, it's fucking impossible not to feel guilty when I can see you from my bloody window!'

Harry's hand jarred in sharp pain, and he breathed in short huffs through his teeth, clenching his uninjured hand into a fist. 'And you just stand there, I can even see you in the pitch black, with all this fucking white marble – I don't know how she expects me to just pretend you're not there!'

Harry jerked his head down, and stared at the rhythmic drip drip drip of his blood pattering on the dry ground. He saw blood in his nightmares – dreamed about Remus and Fred, and George's ear slashed away. He never saw blood when he dreamed about Malfoy; never any colour, always just white.

Harry lifted his hand, considered the skin raggedly split across his knuckles, and the thin lines of red flowing down and joining on his fingers. He reached out, and painted Malfoy's cheek in red.

_...punching a fucking tree, you ridiculous bastard..._

Harry threw himself back violently, tripping over his own feet and landing with a painful thud in the dirt. He caught himself on his bloodied hand, but was too shocked to really register the pain.

Malfoy's voice.

In his head.

Harry's hands scrabbled mindlessly at his sides, flowing blood and dust caking his hand in dirt as he stared at Malfoy's statue. His hip and ribs sang loudly with pain. Was that...?

'I'm going mad.' Harry told it. 'I've gone mad.'

He slowly, clumsily, stood up. 'Completely mad.' He reached out, and with the slightest, lightest of pressures, touched his fingertips to Malfoy's face again, over the smears of his own blood.

… _that really have been – Potter?_

'Malfoy?'

_Potter!_


	3. Scared

_Potter...! I can't – you can hear me?_

Harry began hyperventilating, shallow, quickly aborted breaths making his head swim as his eyes stung. What...? 'I can hear you. In my head.'

_Doesn't matter where you can hear me – just – oh Merlin... Pott..._

Harry withdrew his hand as if burned. This was – this was wrong. He was mad – it must mean – he'd gone mad at some point, and Hermione hadn't even bothered to tell him. Malfoy's statue looked the same. It looked exactly the same. The sun was setting, like usual, but this time the sun was setting on a Harry that had gone completely around the bend and could hear the voices of dead people in his head.

'Malfoy.' Harry dropped his head into his hands, scratched harshly at his wet cheeks, rubbed at his eyes. Replaced his hand on that marble face.

_...swear to fucking Circe – If you take your hand off again, Potter, I'll..._

'Malfoy?'

_Yes – YES! It's me – you're – I'm here... I'm here!_

'You're not here. You're dead.' Harry shook his head, like he was talking to a child.

_Then why am I shouting at you, you fucking tosspot?! Potter – I'm..._

'No, you are. You died. I've gone insane.'

_Potter – for the love of – I'm not dead. I'm here... I'm right here._

'How- how could...' Harry's voice cracked, barely keeping contact with the cold stone with the very tip of his finger. He couldn't bring himself to let go. The Malfoy in his head said not to. Somehow, thinking that made perfect sense and made him want to throw up his dinner at the same time. 'You can't be.'

_And yet I am – just, don't let go. I'm here. I've been here all the – I'm not – I don't think I'm dead. I'm here. I've always been here._

'You're a statue,' Harry intoned numbly. He stepped closer, and squeaked a thumb over the blood slick on the white surface. There was no life in those eyes. There was life in his head. 'Minerva said you died.'

_I'd like to think I know better whether I'm dead or not – I've been stuck here. You said I'm a statue – it doesn't feel like that..._

'You are. You're this big, god-awful marble statue,' Harry's eyes were streaming, and he blinked the blurriness away. 'I'm touching it – you...'

_It's like I'm on the other side of a window – but I can feel your hand – just, don't let go, Potter. Do NOT let go._

'I won't,' Harry gasped, and sobs shook his body. He slumped forward, head hanging, the only thing keeping him upright in the invisible force of his fingertips pressed against ice-cool marble. 'You're alive.'

 _Yes – and very well versed in your life, Potty._ An incredulous, euphoric laugh echoed in Harry's head and he would have found it impossible to be insulted by the nickname even if he tried. _I could – Merlin – I've heard everything. I didn't think... Fuck, I've been talking back, but I thought you'd never hear._

Harry gusted out his own surprised laugh. 'I – sorry, that must have been pretty boring,' he smiled even as tears fell in fat droplets from his down-turned face. He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve, staring desperately into those sightless eyes before abandoning them to rest his forehead gently on a cold shoulder, soothed by the familiar, entirely unexpected voice.

_I've been here since – Potter, I can't sleep... If you hadn't, I would have gone mad._

'Looks like I did, instead,' Harry sighed, pressing his free hand to his chest, feeling his racing heart.

_You're not mad – I'm here. Look, believe me, Potter. I'm here._

'You're here,' Harry repeated, breathless. 'You're alive.'

 _Yes – we covered that._ The voice so familiar and so different at the same time. Exasperated. Warm. _I'm fucking stuck, though, aren't I? They think I'm dead, and I can't – I've tried to get out..._

'Stuck...' Harry stared at the ground. At Malfoy's shoes. At his own. 'We'll get you out.'

_I've tried – Potter, for fuck's sake, I've tried. I'm stuck. I'm fucking stuck here._

'Do you have a wand?' Harry asked, and winced at Malfoy's loud, explicit answer indicating the negative. 'Alright. I – I'll get you out.'

 _Potter – you might not be able to. What if it's not possible?_ Malfoy's voice was suddenly small, and lost, and Harry's tears started again. He thought about Malfoy stuck there. The statue he hated, there forever, the one that haunted his dreams. With Malfoy still inside.

'It has to be.'

* * *

'I need to let go – I need to go back to the castle,' Harry murmured into the dark. Both hands cupped Malfoy's lifeless face. His fingers alternated between numbness and crippling pain from the cold.

_I know. I don't want – believe it or not, Potter, I don't want you to leave._

Harry smiled into the chill night air. 'I don't want to go. I – Christ, I hated leaving you before...' He coughed. Admitting that had been easy enough, since he was so much in the habit of conversing with that marble face. Belatedly, he realised it wasn't just a face any more.

 _You need to. I can't afford you dying of exposure,_ Malfoy's voice hummed across Harry's mind. _You just have to promise to come back. I've heard Gryffindor promises have value._

Harry laughed into unforgiving white stone – a desperate, quiet sound. 'I promise. I really...' Harry screwed up his face against the bitter cold, the foreboding darkness of the forest, and the pain in his chest. 'I mean it.'

_Then I'll see you soon._

'Yeah. Yes.' Harry shuddered, pulling away. Removing his hands. Suppressing a sob. 'Goodnight.'

* * *

Harry didn't sleep. He sat, half nude, in front of the window.

He'd staggered up to the tower to frantically search for books, dictionaries, any kind of information, tearing his way through the dormitory and common room like a whirlwind, cursing and crying, incensed at the locked library and sliced through by the lingering, sharp pain of the cold. He'd worked himself into a frenzy, until his tears and numbness had forced him to fall to the floor, almost catatonic.

He'd divested himself of his stone-cold clothes, wrapped up in a duvet. Considered leaving again, going back outside. Taking another duvet and draping it around Malfoy's effigy. Touching his face and laughing with him, mourning with him. Freezing to death.

He sat at the window, and stared at that white, until it seared into his brain.

* * *

Morning came. So did Hermione.

Harry ran down the stairs, straight into her. She laughed at his eagerness, and his lack of clothing, until she saw the look in his eyes.

'Harry – what's wrong?'

'It's Malfoy, Malfoy is still – he's out there – 'Mione...' Harry babbled, gripping her by the arms, trying to shake the understanding right into her body. 'Malfoy is out there.'

'I know, Harry,' she soothed, both caring and concerned. 'You've spent too much time out there.'

'I – no, I haven't. I haven't spent enough. Look, no. Doesn't matter, just – do you have the key for the library?'

'Yes,' Hermione replied, stunned, and had to grab a nearby table when Harry attempted to drag her out of the portrait hole. 'Harry - clothes!'

* * *

'He's still there – I touched the statue, and I heard him in my head,' the words tumbled out with only half of his attention considering them as Harry flipped frantically through a book.

'Harry – I don't know what to say,' Hermione moaned into her hand. 'Did you – did you read that leaflet?'

'Yes, I read the fucking leaflet,' Harry snapped. 'Malfoy is trapped in that statue. I need to fix it.'

Hermione watched him angrily rifle through aged pages, eyebrows drawing upwards. 'Maybe we should go to St. Mungo's.'

'I – what?' The rifling stopped. 'You - Hermione, you think I've gone insane.'

'I didn't say that!' Hermione pulled back in her chair. 'Harry, we've all been under a lot of stress...'

'No, no no, it's okay. I thought that. I heard him in my head and I thought...' Harry stared at the unfortunate victim of a book in his hands. 'You need to trust me, he's there. I heard his voice.'

'Can you hear that voice now?' Hermione asked, timidly, and squeaked when Harry slammed his hand down onto the table. 'I'm sorry, It's just -'

'I'm not mental. I'm not -' Harry heaved a deep breath. 'I'm not. I need your help with this. I'll show you.'

* * *

Hermione struggled to keep pace with an almost sprinting Harry, stumbling and tripping inelegantly the undulating slope of the hill towards Malfoy's prone form. 'Harry – slow down – what are we...'

'I'll prove it,' Harry announced, scraping to a halt in front of the statue. 'Malfoy, I'm researching, I need Hermione's help. Can you talk to her?'

He snatched her hand, twisting the wrist gently to flatten her palm over Malfoy's coat. His blood had dried in messy streaks across the formerly pristine line of jaw; somehow, pressing her hand there seemed wrong. Too intimate.

'Is that blood?' Hermione baulked at the unwilling movement of her arm, already trying to snatch it out of Harry's grasp, letting out a bark of surprise when he shoved it harder against the stone. 'Harry, that hurts. Is that yours?'

'Listen,' Harry hissed.

'I can't hear anything,' Hermione pleaded. 'You're hurting my hand.'

He caught her expression, eyes full of confusion and an uncomfortable amount of fear, and relinquished hold. 'Nothing?'

Hermione rubbed her wrist plaintively. 'I didn't hear anything. Harry -'

He pressed his own hand to the statue, fingers curling around the curve of Malfoy's coat. 'Malfoy?'

Nothing.

* * *

Harry went out again that night. Watched the sun set. Tried again.

The silence echoed in his heart and through his lungs, stealing his breath. He cried himself to sleep.

* * *

The morning greeted him with a dull grey sky, frigid dorm room and a small, unassuming little slip of paper. Signed by Hermione. Recommending a Healer.

Harry screwed it up in his hand, catching the rough edges on his newly healed, tender cuts. The roughness rubbed against the raw skin and he winced. He shuffled over to the window, opened it, and threw the balled note as far as he could, shutting the window again with a decisive click.

The paper was picked up by the wind as he closed the latch, dancing down the impressive height of the tower with unpredictable, sharp jerks. His eyes caught on that white – the other white, the awful white - and he screwed them shut until it hurt.

Squeaking his fingers over the icy glass, he took deep, helpless breaths. He'd dreamed about Malfoy. Malfoy looking at him, calling him a liar. Asking him why he'd broken his promise, wide eyed, stormy grey, then shifting – laughing, calling him mad. Sneering at him and making to shove him, but always falling short. Like they were separated; like there was a pane of glass there.

Like a window.

Harry sobbed, and scraped his nails down the glass with an unnatural ringing noise.

Was he insane?


	4. Empty

Harry's head was so empty it echoed. It seemed like the sound – the lack of sound, a big, suffocating chasm of soundlessness – reverberated through the trees, vibrated through his chest, caused his heart to squeeze.

Harry thought in numbers. One week – six days, to be exact – until Hogwarts was really home again. Six days until milling children in flapping little black cloaks would provide the distraction Hermione was hoping for.

Three times he'd stood there. Three days he'd heard nothing.

The second night it had rained. Harry's blood had washed away. He'd stood in the downpour and watched it, until his hair was plastered uncomfortably to his skull and his fringe stuck to the icy glass of his spectacles, potentially obscuring his view, if only the tears hadn't done that long beforehand. The droplets began in a gentle patter, dancing down across pale stone, diluting red to a delicate – skin-like, warm, living – pink. It soon advanced to a hard, shattering storm. Harry's shoulders stung with the assault, bullets of water driving into his flesh like pinpricks. The blood slid away until there was no trace of it left.

Harry gripped at that statue until his nails chipped on the unforgiving hardness, until his hands fumbled and slid from the iridescent marble, rendered clumsy by numbness.

He'd talked until his voice wouldn't come, and his breath rasped in his throat.

Three days of nothing.

* * *

'You're not sleeping.'

Harry fought gravity, dragging his head up to meet Hermione's gaze. 'Not really, no.'

Her lips pursed in concern, and she pushed a plate of scrambled eggs towards him. Harry stared at it passively. He stabbed a fork at the plate, deaf to the unpleasant scraping sound that caused his breakfast companion to wince. 'Harry -'

'I know, yeah. It's not good to be crazy and a teacher at the same time,' Harry laughed, a little manically. 'Not that it's a weird thing to see in this place.'

'I don't think you're crazy,' Hermione admonished, and Harry was disappointed, since she didn't even slightly attempt to hide the fact that she was lying through her teeth. 'I do think maybe you could go see Madame Pomfrey, she's back from the holidays -'

'I just don't understand it,' Harry burst out over her, angrily jabbing at the eggs. 'Right, I'm mental, okay then. So, why would hearing – hearing him in my head, why would it stop and start?' The prongs of his fork screamed across the china, and the other occupants of the hall each shot him a concerned glance. 'I just don't. Get. It.'

Hermione grabbed his hand, and he started. He looked at her properly then, and immediately empathised with the dark circles adorning her eyes.

'Was that your blood on the statue? Of – of Malfoy?'

'That's not -'

'Harry, I'm sorry, but...' Hermione bit her lip, then steeled her expression. 'You're going to Pomfrey.'

'I'm an adult now, 'Mione,' Harry sneered. 'You can't just tell me -'

'I will not have you be a danger to your students.'

Harry's eyes dulled.

* * *

This wasn't one of the more dignified uses of his invisibility cloak, Harry thought, pressed bodily to an Astronomy tower window.

Malfoy shone at him in the gentle evening glow.

He shouldn't go out there for a fourth night.

He knew he would.

* * *

Four days until the 1st of September. Four days until he didn't only have a responsibility to himself.

Harry stared unseeingly at the canopy above his new bed, in his new quarters, with his new window.

It looked the wrong way. Harry didn't like it.

* * *

He sat in his new, already disorganised office and scribbled illegibly on a lesson plan. Numerous self help and mental health books had been balanced precariously on the corner of the desk, and as far as he was concerned they could stay there until they crumbled to dust. Hermione was no longer able to badger him, since her reparation job was completed and she had responsibilities elsewhere.

Possibly with the Weasley family; she and Ron had openly discussed engagement. She might even take Harry's place as an adopted member of the family, he thought bitterly to himself. Molly cried every time she looked at him. Ron – Ron was managing.

Three days, and Harry was terrified. He was both completely prepared and not at all. He still couldn't sleep. Last night the silence had scared him so much he'd barely made it a few steps beyond the castle's grand main doorway, all breath rushing out of him as his shoes scuffed on unpaved ground.

* * *

That night, Harry dressed in his new formal teaching robes, fidgeting with the starched shirt cuffs. He walked through the halls of his home, cloak billowing out behind him, stirring up the musty scent of silent walkways and reminding him of Snape, bringing forth a bitter smile.

He had an appointment with Pomfrey tomorrow. Hermione had seen his hand, and remembered that blood on Malfoy's frozen expression, and owled, and both women were unavoidable. She was going to refer him to St. Mungo's, and Harry would lose his job before he'd even started it, and...

Maybe not. Malfoy wasn't in his head any more. Maybe he had been mad, but he wasn't now, and good riddance.

Harry hated himself for thinking that. He leaned heavily against an archway in the courtyard, some deep sense of petty rebellion influencing him to purposefully scuff his new shoes against the rough stonework, and he heaved in the still evening air.

He couldn't go closer.

* * *

Harry started awake. He gasped in a desperate breath, choking on it and spluttering, flinging out his limbs, shaking himself awake.

Pomfrey – Hermione had seen his hand, she'd seen the blood – the blood, the blood -!

Harry's blood.

On Malfoy's face.

Harry ran, his open pyjama shirt flapping behind him.

* * *

Harry fell when he was a little under ten feet away, skidding across rough ground on his knees, catching himself with his hands, tearing his skin to tatters through his thin pyjamas. Absent mindedly he noted the appropriateness of the stinging pain – the blossoming stains on his trouser fronts – as he scrabbled up, alternating gasps of air with nonsensical mumbling.

He caught himself on Malfoy's outstretched arm, swaying drunkenly as the cold air leached in towards his skin. His spectacles lay abandoned on the ground, and he bent one arm as he shuffled his feet for purchase.

'It's the – you...' He hooked an arm around the elbow, bringing up his hands to inspect them, jerking a little then righting himself. Scratches, dirt clinging to the reddening skin as skin peeled away like parchment. No bleeding.

He gripped the marble arm like a lifebelt, taking a quick glance at his knees. Not enough.

Harry glanced up, desperate, at Malfoy's blank face, eyebrows knitting together. The – how had he, last time?

The tree.

Harry scrambled over to it, tripping once and landing heavily on one knee, but blind to the pain. When he reached it, he paused.

If he punched it again, he might not bleed. He didn't know how much – he didn't remember from last time...

Harry swore. His wand was back in his rooms. He'd – he'd cast _sectumsempra_ on himself, if it meant he'd hear Malfoy's voice again. What -

Harry drew in a harsh breath, until his lungs burned with the effort, and then let it out in a rush, He then pinched as much of the skin of his palm as he could between his teeth, and bit down.

The blood flowed readily, and it hurt like fuck – but when he pressed the skin and wetness to Malfoy's alabaster cheek, the coldness dulled the pain, his head wasn't empty any more, and Harry knew he'd do it a hundred times again.

_Blood?_

'Blood,' Harry echoed in a whisper, and laughed, tears streaming.

_What the fuck kind of spell – I wish I could – Potter..._

'This is good,' Harry emphasised, voice still low. He pressed close to Malfoy's unforgiving body, hand gliding across the slickness of his jaw. Harry knew he was caressing the line of Malfoy's marble cheek with a blood soaked thumb, and he didn't give a shit.

_How the – Potter, how the shitting fuck is this good? You just BIT yourself!_

Harry laughed again, desperately, manically, throwing an arm around Malfoy's lifeless neck and dripping blood and tears down his coat. 'Who the fuck cares, Malfoy – you're there, I'm not mad...' He hiccuped, pressing his jaw into the unyielding white of the man's collar. 'You're alive.'

 _And you won't be, soon, if you have to keep maiming yourself to chat about the Quidditch scores,_ Malfoy barked in his mind, and Harry sobbed with laughter and relief. _Potter, you can't -_

'I can do what the fuck I like,' Harry told Malfoy's neck, his body shaking. 'And what I'm definitely going to do is get you the hell out.'

_How in Merlin's name are you going to – Potter, this is fucked up dark magic, if you have to bleed on me -_

'I don't care,' Harry's voice was clear, resolute, strong. 'I'll get you out.'

_Potter -_

'If I have to die to save you, that's what will happen.' The silence rang clear in his head again, and Harry moaned pitifully at the loss. 'Malfoy..'

_You – fucking hell._

Harry smiled, euphorically and sadly, into perfectly curved stone.

 _Potter..._ Malfoy's voice rang out between his ears, and Harry hummed, tears gluing dark eyelashes to his cheeks. _I – you can't do that._

'Can and will.'

Harry felt the rushing sound of a gust of breath flow across his mind. _I – Merlin. You're mad._

'Not you too,' Harry snorted, pressing his forehead to the cheek unoccupied by his sticky, burning hand.

Malfoy's voice in his head laughed, and it warmed him against the midnight cold that was feathering its way through his clothes. _Potter,_ he heard, and that voice hissed a word that logically should be possible to hiss in a way that was so familiar it re-started the waning flow of tears. _This isn't a joke – blood magic, it means there's a cost to this..._

'I wasn't kidding,' Harry frowned. He drew back, and studied that face. He placed both hands to the cheeks, willed himself to feel soft skin rather than hard stone. 'Trust me.' His eyes streamed, and he drew back one had to scrape his face dry with his sleeve. Not the bleeding hand. He couldn't let that go.

 _You won't have a chance anyway –_ the voice was scornful, but somehow terrified – _Merlin knows_ _you're going to bleed to death right now, you stupid bastard._

'I'm fine,' Harry whispered to dead eyes. He shuddered, and his fingers began to sting. He couldn't let go.

 _Let go,_ Malfoy sighed. _You're no good to me dead._

'Yet,' Harry cackled, and he received a growl in response.

_Fucking – I understand we weren't exactly family, Scarhead, but – fuck, don't do this, alright?_

'Do what?'

_Expect me to be okay with that – what you're saying. I can't..._

'I can,' Harry intoned, and he felt the truth of it in his bones. He tried to send that feeling in waves through his head. 'It's okay – I can. I can do that.'

 _I won't let you._ The angry hiss cut behind Harry's eyes.

'You don't have a choice.'


	5. Paper

They argued. Harry's hand had long stopped bleeding, and began to crust and sear in pain against the dirtied stone, as he shivered violently in the moonlight.

_Look, Potter – just – fine. Now go away._

No,' Harry whispered into the breeze. 'I'm going to stay here.'

 _Forever?_ Malfoy's biting tone shivered down Harry's neck. _Let's not make this a party._

'I'll get a house elf to bring a blanket or something.'

 _No, Potter. Piss off._ Harry snorted, fumbling at his pyjama shirt to ineffectively draw it closed, shifting his hand against the statue and hissing with the pain. _I'm serious – fuck off, Potty._

Harry laughed, but it came out devoid of humour. 'And do what? Stare out of the window, instead?'

_No, bloody – I know you were never a great intellect, but you must realise you're going to freeze to death if you stay out here much longer, blanket or no._

Harry shrugged in quiet disagreement. His shirt flapped open again, fluttering in the slight breeze that drifted across from the black water, and he shuddered again, more violently. 'Nah, probably not. Hermione would find me before I died.'

 _Forgive me if I'm not entirely certain I want to rely on that fact,_ Malfoy's drawl reeled through Harry's woozy, distracted mind. _What must I do to make you leave?_

'I 'unno,' Harry's shivering quaked his shoulders and he shuffled unsteadily back and forth by inches, rubbing an ice-cold fist across his bared stomach. 'Come back, probably.'

 _We're working on it, aren't we,_ Malfoy sighed. _Go._

'I can't - '

_Please, Potter. GO._

* * *

Harry fell in a heap at the foot of his bed, and found it impossible to right himself again.

Pain shot like knives through the musculature of his limbs, as the angry heat of the fire he'd started clashed with the pervasive dull chill of his overexposure. Both his ears and fingers, once he'd regained the ability to feel them, felt like they were going to shard away from his body in little chips of shattered ice.

The cut – bite mark, three jagged holes from his teeth – peeked out, a vicious red, from behind the splattered blood, and throbbed intensely with every squeeze of his heart. His wand lay on the table, too far away to reach, and the possibility of a healing charm was illusive.

Harry didn't want that, anyway. He wanted to bite it again.

* * *

He stood slumped in the shower until his eyes stung and the constant battering of the water wrinkled his skin and caused his palm to bleed anew.

He saw the drip of red as it pattered to the tile, and numbly observed it mingle and fade, flowing away from his bare, still stinging feet.

Every moment he spent longer in the spray was a moment he wasn't researching the spell.

Every moment he stayed there, he wasn't coming across a bitter realisation – every second in the shower was a second he wasn't realising that the spell was unbreakable.

Harry was terrified of that.

* * *

Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. All the shitty little spells that he'd been taught to search the library for research had failed him, all of Hermione's little tricks – fucking owled her, no reply, she took days to reply, now – he'd turned up nothing. No precedent. A day wasted.

How could Harry face him now?

* * *

_You must have realised I'd expected that._

'Fuck, I – I know, I just hoped...'

_Potter..._

'I'm not going to give up.'

_I know. I don't know why._

'You saved my life.'

 _I've been wondering how long it would take for that to come up._ A bitter laugh, shuddering inside Harry's head. _You also saved mine._

'You broke my nose,' Harry whispered, and smiled.

* * *

Two days. If only he could freeze time; all he needed, more time, if only he could pause it all and Malfoy wouldn't have to be out there, alone, for hours on end.

He'd read every relevant word in the building, twice, some three times. The frantic, curt orders he'd sent by owl yesterday had been answered by early that morning - booksellers, librarians, anyone he could find the name of – they'd all responded to extravagant, expensive offers for their wares, and soon.

Harry was down more than a few galleons, and he'd gotten absolutely fucking nowhere fast.

* * *

'Do you know who cast this – who attacked you?'

 _Yaxley,_ came the rumbled reply, and Harry slumped. _He's dead, isn't he._

Harry rubbed his eyes aggressively with his free hand, nodding. 'He was killed in an attempted arrest in Wales, not that long after – after the battle. I'm sorry.'

 _No, Potter, I'm fucking sorry,_ Malfoy's voice shot him an angry, barking laugh. _I – we're both going to go fucking mad._

'I – no, you know we probably already are,' he snorted back, humourless, defeated. 'I – I would bring him back if I could, just to...' Harry scuffed at the ground with worn shoes, grinding his teeth, scrunching up his face against the stinging in his eyes and bile in his throat. 'I'd bring him – that bastard back, just to kill him again.'

 _Here was me thinking we'd all learned a valuable lesson about dark magic,_ Malfoy's voice was haughty, but the tone purred across Harry's chest.

'It usually takes a few blows to the head for me to learn anything,' Harry replied, and thudded his temple to a hard shoulder in punctuation. 'You should know – I would – I'd do that.'

 _You should know I wouldn't ask it,_ came the hissing answer. _You – you may not have known it before. You should now._

'I know, I know...' Harry moaned. 'I do – I know that. I feel like I – well, we were like, enemies – that's so stupid – before, but now I feel like I _know_ you. How fucked up is that?' Harry laughed, bitterly, into white stone.

 _Very,_ he heard, and the voice was warm. A gentle silence fell for a moment, and Harry absent-mindedly drew his cloak tighter around himself. The sun had fully dipped below the high horizon of the mountains, and a night frost hung in the air around the pair.

_When will you give up?_

Harry started, and almost lost grip on Malfoy's blood-slicked cheekbone. His hand jarred, and the fresh knife cut – opened and re-opened over the bite wound – sent a spiking pain along his arm. 'What?'

_You're in robes. School starts soon._

'I -' Harry fumbled for words. 'I won't give up. I – I can't.'

_Really, Potter?_

'Why the hell would I?'

A sigh ghosted over his ears. The sound seemed painfully close, as if Malfoy was whispering in the shell, nose centimetres away from his temple. Harry wished he was.

_The question is, why wouldn't you?_

* * *

'It's tomorrow. School starts tomorrow.'

_I guessed – the robes. I'm – the passing of time isn't really something I've got a handle on, any more – in here._

'What's it like?' Harry asked, even though Malfoy had told him, multiple times. He'd collected as much information as he could, and it still hadn't helped.

_It's – numb._

'You can't – can you still feel me?' Harry slid a calloused thumb over the high arch of a white cheek, smearing pink in its wake.

_I – yes, that's about the only thing I can feel. But... I've said, it's like it's just – pressure. Only ever where the blood is._

'Yeah,' Harry whispered. 'I guess – it'd be helpful if it changed.'

_I'd rather it didn't, if it meant I couldn't feel that any longer._

'God, no,' Harry agreed quietly, horrified.

He stood in silence for a while. If he focused – if he really, resolutely retreated into his head, and tried to ignore the cold and the dulling light – he could convince himself for even just a moment that there was the slight gusts of breath, little rasping reassurances of life beyond that awful white boundary. Malfoy couldn't feel the warmth of his hand, or even the lack thereof – they'd awkwardly discussed as much.

Harry couldn't even express to him how much he wanted him to feel it, or for the statue to yield like soft flesh, something real and alive for Harry to hold on to.

Merlin, if Harry managed to get him back, he was going to grab on and never let go.

 _You're going to be an awful teacher,_ Malfoy's bodiless voice murmured, providing a warmth that stone never could, and Harry laughed.

'So awful,' he agreed. 'I'm probably going to pass out when I see them. Tomorrow,' he added, and almost choked on the word.

_I'm going to do something I've never done before, Potter, and wish you luck._

'Yeah, yeah... I'll need it. I was so worried, but – it's not even important any more. This is important.' You're important, Harry thought, but couldn't voice.

 _I – are you sleeping?_ Malfoy asked, and it was so bizarre to hear that question in that haughty voice that it threw Harry for a moment.

'You – since when the fuck did you care?' Harry jerked, and it was uncalled for, and tasted bitter on his tongue, and his face fell in a silent apology even as he turned it away.

 _Since you were my only link to real life, Potty,_ Malfoy's tone sharply returned, even haughtier. _For Merlin's sake – you're not, are you?_

'Do you really want me to waste time – no, of course I'm not!'

_Are you really that dense?_

'I don't see what the hell I can do about it – this is too – I just can't. I need to keep looking.'

_Potter, for fuck's sake – aren't you starting to think that perhaps -_

Harry locked his knees, tried to prevent his legs from giving way underneath him. 'Don't say it.'

_Potter -_

'Please, don't -'

 _You aren't going to get me out of here!_ Malfoy snapped, and Harry's face fell like an avalanche down a mountainside, and his legs nearly went anyway, as the air gusted out his lungs and his stomach leapt up to his heart. _Don't pull that fucking face – we both know I'm right._

'I'm not going to stop trying – I promised you -'

_You're going to have to accept that this is going to be the thing you can't fucking fix, Potter – I'm the one you can't save -_

'I have to save you!' Harry burst out, and his eyes stung too much to keep them open, to keep looking at that white, and he turned away violently. His hand slid, and he scrabbled it back on the stone, even as the other fist slammed down onto a sharp shoulder and unrelenting hardness.

 _It's not fair to punch a man in a statue, Potter,_ Malfoy relented, voice sad and kind, and that was all it took for the tears to start again. _You can't keep coming out here like this. Your teaching will be bad enough as it is._

But Harry was sobbing, even as his hands gripped too tightly on the marble and he shook with a gut wrenching mix of anger and loss – mourning someone he could still hear in his head. 'I – you bastard.'

There was a sharp intake of breath in Harry's ear that didn't come from him. _I'm making an effort to care about your well-being, so you better well fucking take it while it lasts._

'And I'm not allowed to care about yours?'

 _Not while you're the one with a life to lead, that fretting over this – over me – might ruin. I – can't you understand that? You absolute tosser..._ Heavy breathing in his ear, distant and yet so distinct from that familiar rusting of leaves, and wind on the shore. _You've made me fucking care, you bastard._

'Yeah, of course, and I'm just out here because I really enjoy the weather,' Harry snapped, pressing angrily at his dripping face with his wrist. 'I bloody well care too – you know that.'

_Why the fuck would you, Potty? I – we hated each other!_

'No, we didn't – not in the end,' and Harry knew Malfoy would hate him saying that, and he knew it was true. 'Even if we did – I wouldn't just leave you like this.'

 _What – what if I would?_ Malfoy whispered, and suddenly everything was too quiet.

'I -' Harry let go for a second – less than that, the tiniest moment, and he hated himself more than he'd ever done before in that briefest gap of time. His fingers reattached like they were welded there, like they'd stay there for all of eternity and beyond, and he sighed. 'It doesn't matter. I wouldn't. I won't.'

 _It doesn't matter!_ Malfoy hissed through his mind, slicing through his thoughts and reverberating off the inside of his skull. _I'm stuck here, I'm always damn well going to be stuck here, little Malfoy monument to all that's pure-blood and evil, emblem of fucking dark magic that all the little kiddies to run away from..._

Silence.

_Potter._

'What?' Harry tried very hard not to snap, rubbing at his red eyes.

_Did you – what books have you been reading?_

The question caught Harry off guard – he'd had a brief moment of horrible daydreaming, picturing first years painting targets on Malfoy's alabaster back – and he had to shake his head, trying to throw the thoughts into the ether. 'Hogwarts library, Dumble – the headmistress' collection. I went to the Ministry but they didn't have much.' Fucking Ministry.

_I – after my parents... died. What happened to my manor?_

'I...' Harry had no idea. Wait – Minerva had said... 'Acquisition of the Ministry.'

 _Potter._ Malfoy's voice was sharp, and had a strength Harry had not heard for too long.

'What?'

_I need you to break into my home._


	6. Price

 

 

Harry tried to gather his wits on the frosty lawn – one he recognised, no matter how much he didn't want to, how often he tried to push those memories out of his head – and swallowed back the bile rising in his throat.

 

 _'Revelare obscuratam,'_ Harry murmured into the low hanging mist around his body, and a gentle blue light pinged off from his outstretched wand, flying off like a silent firework into the darkness. He shielded his eyes with a wrist when the missive contacted the wards he'd been expecting and triggered off a shuddering, liquid glow that surrounded the distant building.

 

The tent of light wobbled, flowing back and forth in the air for a moment, before dissolving, dripping down and disappearing. Harry nodded to himself.

* * *

 

 

_The – it's warded, or at least it should be. I don't expect the Ministry will have managed to -_

 

'They probably haven't tried,' Harry quessed, since he was familiar with the huge internal mess the Ministry still had to consider before it went about cataloguing the possessions of Death Eaters. 'I – are you sure? I don't really -'

 

_Of course I'm sure – look, I -it's understandable if you don't want to do this – for me - what I said..._

 

'No.' Harry was resolute. 'No. I said I'd do anything. I would, I didn't lie.' He shuffled awkwardly. 'I just really don't miss that place at all...'

 

 _You don't want to go back._ There was a laugh, a quiet one, and it was so unlike other times that voice had laughed at Harry, when it had made him want to punch something. _Potter – honestly, I don't blame you._

 

'No, it's just – your house is going to try to kill me, isn't it,' Harry deadpanned, and another laugh pealed through his mind.

* * *

 

 

 

Harry stumbled up across the unkempt grass until he faced the invisible boundary where he knew the wards began, tripping over knotts in the damp ground and drawing his cloak tighter around himself in the night air, sharply righting himself before he went face first into the ward and recieved something more painful than a headache for his trouble.

 

He breathed deeply in and out for a while, twirling his wand in nervous, numb fingers. One last restorative breath, and he began the long mantra of incantations he needed to slip safely through the wall of magic.

* * *

 

 

 

_You need to go into my – my father's study._

 

Harry nodded, scraping his forehead across Malfoy's shoulder, smoothing out a regular pattern of strokes on one cheekbone with his thumb.

 

_I – don't go anywhere else. Potter. Are you listening, you git?_

 

'Wha – yes, I'm bloody listening. I'm not going to go snoop in your bedroom, don't worry,' Harry snorted, and although it was childish he felt it comforting to revert to bickering in the face of what might lay ahead of him. Malfoy Manor. Merlin, wasn't he looking forward to this particular adventure.

 

 _As considerate as that is, I wasn't talking about – look, let's not get into that. Just – there's some things you don't want to see._ Malfoy was almost whispering to him, his voice gentle, and Harry took a moment to squeeze his eyes shut until it hurt.

 

'Yeah, okay.... Alright.'

* * *

 

 

 

The entranceway was like the foyer to a museum of everything Harry had ever hated, and he stomped angrily through it, hearing his footfalls echoing off high ceilings and the pinched faces of demure, silent portraits.

 

Harry squared his shoulders and sneered at them all as he passed.

* * *

 

 

 

 _On - on the far bookshelf, next to the window. There's a box. I – Merlin, Potter, this is going to confirm every prejudice you've ever had about me,_ Malfoy snorted, and Harry smirked into a stone shirt collar with his eyes still closed. _You need to open the box, and put a drop of blood on the ring inside. And, erm. Say the words 'aeternum purus_ '.

 

'I'm a half blood.'

 

_Yes, Potter, I'm aware._

 

'So, won't my blood not work?'

 

_I'm not entirely certain. I don't believe it differentiates._

 

'Seriously?'

 

_Yes. Shut up._

* * *

 

 

 _'Aeternum purus,_ ' Harry mumbled, watching the heavy, fat droplet from his palm leech out across the grey-white pearl of the ring face and absorb eerily into the stone.

 

It threw up an awful comparison to the statue of Malfoy he'd left behind, alone in the pitch darkness of the night with Harry's blood smeared across his jaw, and Harry's own face twisted in disgust.

 

He started as the bookcase to his left drew back with an awful groaning noise. He peered cautiously through the gap, and in front of him was an entirely different type of study, like Borgin and Burkes and the Room of Hidden Things had pooled together their most spine-tinglingly awful objects in one unsettling collection.

 

He leapt at the tall, forboding bookshelves like there were inferi his heels.

 

* * *

 

 

_Do you think you'll be able to find anything?_

 

'I – I really don't know. You know what's in there better than me. I just – you know I won't stop trying.'

 

_I – yes, I suppose I do._

 

'Let's just keep hoping, yeah?'

 

_Hmm. Potter?_

 

'Yeah?'

 

_Thank you._

* * *

 

 

 

Harry staggered through the doorway of his quarters with unsure footing, shoulders aching under his burden even with the scores of books he'd aquired being both shrunk and some spelled with weightlessness charms. He threw them unceremoniously to the floor, and pressed the heels of his hands aggressively into his eyes, trying to rub out both the dust and the creeping exhaustion.

 

He had no idea where to start.

 

He'd taken almost all of the books he'd seen in there; in the elder Malfoy's creepy little room of evil. Only disgarding the obviously self serving tomes about bloodlines and magical purity, of which there was an unsuprisingly large amount both within and outside the secret study.

 

That place – somewhere Harry hoped he'd never have to return to, really, and he'd rather burn what he'd taken than have to take it back – had cut him through, and he almost felt like he'd left his soul behind, rendering him empty. Shelves and shelves of leather-bound nastiness. An impressively large and varied collection in everything Harry could ever consider loathing, right at his fingertips. Even if some books wanted to sever them from his hands, like Hagrid's book of monsters.

 

It all left Harry with an unmanagable number of of things to look at, even as his eyes began to cross from lack of sleep.

 

He set to work anyway.

* * *

 

 

 

The sun rose late, dull in the grey winter sky and barely able to light the room through the small, dirty window of Harry's living room. One gentle ray of light slid up across his face, beginning to stir him from where he'd collapsed across the cold stone floor.

 

He was surrounded by discarded literature, in a mess like the centre of a malestrom that would make Hermione pull her hair out in distress. Harry himself was as grey as the sky, covered in a variably thick layer of dust and dirt, rendering his lank, unwashed hair sooty and his skin gritty and dry. He woke himself by inhaling too hard, and choking on the musty smell and griminess he'd sucked in, and rose, spluttering and coughing.

 

He sat slumped for a moment, considering his self-created disaster zone.

 

Today was the day school started again.

 

He was a state. He was just as ruined on the inside as the outside.

 

He needed a shower.

 

He wasn't going to give up.

* * *

 

 

Hermione flared through the fireplace, steadying herself on the hearth with a hand that held sheets of crumpled paper. 'Harry – I just read your owl, Ron said...'

 

She recoiled as she took in the state of the room. Nearly every surface was occupied by aged, important looking books – they ranged in size, and colour, but all seemed somehow sinister; many shared the unpleasantly dark feeling she associated with the more repellent Dark Arts texts in the castle Library's restricted section. It was late in the day – after lunchtime. She'd been expecting to find him getting ready for the feast that night, stressing meekly over his new teaching robes. Not this.

 

Gingerly picking her way through a maze of leather and paper, she started at the quiet noise of irregular, sharp intakes of breath.

 

She caught sight of him then, in crumpled, damp clothes and a towel and slumped over a yellowing book, wet hair dripping on the pages. 'Harry?'

 

He looked up at the name, startled out a trance, and she wasn't sure if he'd been crying. His green irises flamed, in a way she recognised with an unpleasant sense of deja vu. She'd seen that look at Remus' funeral.

 

'Hullo,' he mumbled, and threw the book on the floor with a crash.

 

Hermione jumped, rushing forward to save it. 'What – Harry, did you keep your meeting with Madame Pomfrey? I – you know why I -'

 

'No, I didn't keep the fucking appointment.' Hermione's eyes widened a little in a mix of surprise and hurt. 'I'm – I didn't need to. I know I'm not mad.'

 

'Nobody said you were mad,' she tried to placate him, fumbling with the book spine. 'I just – sleep is important, and...'

 

'I know I'm not mad because that THING,' he barked, pointing at the tome in her hands, 'has the spell in it. The right fucking spell.'

 

'Really?' Hermione rifled through the pages. Harry stared at her blankly, gripping vice-like on his towel, knuckles showing white through his skin. 'Does it say that Malfoy is still alive?' She reached the contents page, and offered Harry a smile – it slid from her face when she saw his answering expression.

 

The towel in his hands made a quiet ripping sound.

* * *

 

 

'You know, I never even – I didn't want to think about it again,' Harry offered conversationally, even as his eyes spoke darkness and unreachable chasms to a Hermione who didn't know which way to turn, or whether it was alright to want to run away and never look back. She fidgeted with a distressed moan at the hem of the robe that she had passed him, and he had thrown back in her face. 'It's disrespectful to Cedric, but. I don't want to remember. It. Him like that.'

 

Hermione gaped, mouthed words in the air and came up with nothing. Placating didn't work; she'd tried a hundred times before now. 'I'm sorry,' she tried, and winced as his face twisted and fell in painful silence.

 

His head slumped forward, like the will had simply gone from his body to keep it upright. His dark hair hid his eyes from hers, but the irregular rhythm of droplets on paper was all the indication she needed, and more than she'd ever want. 'There's nothing to be sorry for.' A deep breath in, and his torso shook like a tree in a gale. 'It's – this is actually good.' A barking laugh errupted, alien to his static posture. 'You realise – I can get him back.'

 

Hermione shivered, and not from the cold. 'Harry – this spell, you know 'dark' doesn't even begin to cover it... This cost. It's about cost, and I -'

 

'You don't think I should take it?' His head swung up, horribly akin to an animated corpse in her imagination, and his green eyes were on fire. 'It's just a fucking arm. I think I can spare an arm.'

* * *

 

 

 

She fought with gentle prodding and sad smiles, easing him into his robes even as he ranted and gesticulated wildly around his small quarters.

 

'We need to start – stop, no, I don't want the tie – we need to start working on the spell,' he hissed at her, flapping swathes of black around them both like the bat-like Snape of their childhoods. 'I – fuck this, 'Mione. I don't have to be there.'

 

'You do,' she needled, repeating her part in the well-worn exchange, voice robotic and expression heavy. 'The Headmistress needs you there. You've made a commitment -'

 

'Yes I've made a bloody commitment,' Harry snapped back, ripping at itching sleeve cuffs with stubby fingernails. 'He's out there, isn't he. I just need to tell him -'

 

'Sorting. Feast. Then tell him.' She sighed out like she was losing her youth in the breath. 'I'll – we'll look at the spell,' she added, and his head jerked, eyes hopeful.

 

'God – thanks. Thank you. I need help,' he closed his eyes, face drawn, and she studied the lines and creases the expression made in his face and cursed herself for feeling regret.

* * *

 

 

He waited until the children were in bed, like he'd promised, then he bolted out of the castle like he was escaping from the gates of hell.

 

The line on his hand re-opened easily under the sharp focus of the tip of his wand, even as it jumped about in his unsteady hand. As he lay the bleeding palm against the cold stone of Malfoy's face he tried to send every feeling of relief and gladness in his heart through each pulsing droplet of blood from the wound.

 

 _I like the robes,_ he heard, and the laughter bubbled up from his toes until he struggled to stand upright, even though the voice was quiet and as dry as all of the pages he'd nicked his fingertips on for hours the night before.

 

'I found it,' he whispered, and laughed again, self-conscious of the manic edge that seeped in.

 

_...Oh. Merlin. Fuck. Really?_

 

'Really. Honestly. Right where you said – after I went to the Manor, I just kept reading and reading – some of those bloody books had anti-charm wards. Took me ages,' he smiled as he cried into white stone.

 

 _Potter._ Malfoy was crying too. He could hear it in little hitches of breath that fluttered into his ear from nowhere, and he wished beyond anything he could see it, and feel it. _I take it – this is good news, isn't it?_

 

'Of course it is, you dick,' Harry grinned into the night. 'Yeah, yes. It is. I can get you out. Get you back.'

 

His head tipped down to rest his temple on the stone, in a pose that grew more familiar – more natural with every visit. He tried to reign in the tears, and tried to avoid letting himself imagine Malfoy – an alive, human Draco with yielding flesh and moving limbs – and failed on both counts.

 

_This seems too simple._

 

So quietly spoken, and Harry nearly punched the statue, to stop him thinking. To punish him for making them confront the hard truth. He pulled back, and his fallen face must have acted as the confirmation he never intended to give. _Tell me what you're not telling me._

 

Harry's eyes squeezed shut, and his chin hit his chest. 'It's not -' he tried, before the sentence was aborted early by a sharp sob, and he breathed heavily through his nose. 'I can get you back. There's a spell. I've even -' Breathe in, out, in. He laughed, and it was humourless and sore in his throat. 'I've even seen it performed before.'

 

_Tell me._

 

'Ah – in fourth year – I.' It's good news, Harry thought. He can come back. 'It's the spell – potion, I guess - that allowed Voldemort to return.'

 

* * *

 


	7. Dark

 

Silence.

 

He expected silence, he told himself. He pressed his palm harder against the stone anyway.

 

Then the soft hiss of a deep breath, one that Harry echoed, drawing in the cold September air. _I – I don't know. You saw it?_

 

Harry nodded, jerking the whole upper half of his body. 'The Triwizard – when we – Cedric. When he and I were portkeyed out of the maze. We were taken to a graveyard.' More breathing, big calming gulps that didn't quite take and escaped out of his chest too soon. 'They killed him. Then – then they used a potion – this spell, this spell I found – to re-create Voldemort's body.'

 

 _I'm no dark lord, Potter,_ Malfoy laughed in his skull, high and bitter. _I'm a fucking statue, do you really think -_

 

'Yes. Yes I really think.' Harry smeared the dampness of tears across his face with the hem of his new teaching robes, voice resolute. 'I even understand the magic. Your soul – you're in there,' he tapped on the marble, 'and the spell will reform your body. We - I just need to stick some stuff in it first,' Harry added, like he was discussing a first year Potions test, perusing the storecupboard with a wrinkle-nosed Ron in tow. 'Easy.' He snorted through his tears.

 

 _Easy,_ Malfoy echoed, like he was tasting the word. _It's not easy at all, is it. Potter..._

 

Harry laughed again, heart pounding and high on the adrenaline. 'No - definitely not - but you know I'll do it. I will do it.'

 

_I – yes. I know. But..._

 

Harry shook his head, pre-empting what he didn't want to hear.

 

_What if I don't want you to?_

 

'No. Sorry. I'll still do it – you don't even know what it is. You don't have to know.'

 

_Potter – tell me. Tell me what you have to do._

 

'Why?' Harry asked incredulously, hand slipping on the wet stone. 'It doesn't matter! It'll happen, it's going to happen, Hermione's even going to help me with it – we'll get Slughorn on it if we need to...'

 

_Please._

 

Harry's forehead thunked against Malfoy's, the jar of the contact shuddering through his skull and down his spine, and quoted from memory. Not from the book – a much more staying memory than that.

 

'Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son. Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master. Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe. '

 

He shivered, drawing inwards against the cold in his chest.

 

 _Bone of the father..._ Malfoy whispered across his ear, the gentle silibants sliding through his head.

 

Silence rang again between Harry and Not-Malfoy, and the sound of his raspy breath mingled with the gentle breeze.

 

 _I have no servant. I can't call you my enemy. It won't work._ He sounded definitive. Final.

 

'Hermione says anyone who ever attacked you would do. So I'd count. As an enemy,' Harry murmured. 'But that wasn't what I had in mind for myself.'

 

 _No._ Angry now, as well as sad. _Flesh – what does that even mean?_

 

'Pettigrew cut off a hand,' Harry offered, pressing his damp cheek against the back of his own hand, cupped tenderly still over Malfoy's stone jaw. 'I'd need to take an oath to you, before, I think, anyway...' he trailed off, eyes closing. 'It's not that bad. It could be much worse, actually.'

 

_Not that bad – it's your hand. Your fucking hand._

 

'Probably an arm, actually. Since I'm not your Death Eater or anything,' Harry added, and winced against the bellow in his head.

* * *

 

 

Harry fidgeted restlessly as he watched the last class of the day filter in through the open door to his classroom. Second years, and should be easy enough. He'd a while ago made a relatively relaxing lesson plan for this one – something simple to ease them into the rigour of a new school year - and if only he knew how grateful he'd be to himself in the future.

 

He set them off on simple essays – 'Describe the one spell you wish to learn about before the end of term, and why.' Hermione had advised a gentle, boring approach to shock them out of hero worship, and lo and behold adoring looks had quickly soured to disappointed ones not long after they'd taken their seats.

 

Harry was fine with that. His mind was elsewhere.

 

Elsewhere was currently situated in the grounds below the classroom window, and his eyes barely looked away. Duitiful prowling of the classroom had to be abandoned when he caught himself once too often staring forlornely out of a glass pane earlier that morning, illiciting confused and interested whispers from behind him.

 

The first one he'd heard – a hiss that quickly melded the words 'Malfoy' and 'Death Eater'- had bought the student in question a quick pass to exit the classroom and not return.

 

He was turning into Snape already, and it was only the first day.

 

He didn't care.

* * *

 

 

 

'It's complicated,' Hermione sighed at him, and Harry resisted the urge to introduce his forehead violently to the table. He'd been expecting that. You didn't resurrect the unnamable nightmare of your former enemy on an afternoon's worth of stirring, and the odd ingredient or two from the Herbology greenhouses.

 

'How long?' He scraped his chair back in her kitchen and slumped against it, rubbing his eyes.

 

'I don't know – maybe a month,' she rushed out, and tried to ignore the look in his eyes as his hand impacted with the worn work surface with a thud. 'We'll have to source some things illegally. To be honest, the whole thing will be illegal – Harry, I don't even know where to start about the seriousness of cutting off your own arm.'

 

'It'll be fine,' he grunted, staring at the low ceiling. 'It doesn't specify which one, so I can still keep my right hand for writing and spells.'

 

Hermione's eyes sharpened then, and she sat more confidently in her seat. 'It's not the practicality of it I'm worried about,' she snapped back. 'You can't even be certain you'll survive it!'

 

Harry clicked forward in his chair, and glared at her. 'Are we really going to argue about whether my life is worth his? Because you know what I think.'

 

'He was a Death Eater.'

 

'He had as much choice as I've ever had in this.'

 

'How are you going to explain a missing arm to the Headmistress? And the students?'

 

'Same way I'll explain a living Malfoy. Magic.'

 

She hissed at him, gripping at the table edge. 'Harry Potter. Don't you dare.'

 

'I don't even see what the problem is,' he countered, setting both feet firmly on the floor. 'I can't just leave him. You know that.' He closed his eyes. 'What if it was Ron?'

 

'It isn't.'

 

He breathed heavily through his nose. 'What if it was? If it was Ron, out on the grounds, made of rock. You'd cut off my arm yourself.'

 

'Harry,' she warned. The tone of her voice caught in his ear and when he opened his eyes, he realised she was crying.

 

'You know I have to,' he whispered.

 

'Yes,' she nodded, tears dripping from her chin. 'I do.'

* * *

 


	8. Hope

 

_Would you listen to me – if I told you I didn’t want you to do it?_

 

‘Not for a second.’

September in the highlands, too cold for vigils on the border of the woods. Too cold for just pajamas and an invisibility cloak, but needs must to sneak past a friend in your rooms on her own vigil, and the eyes of children that may be in any window at any moment.

 

_Potter. I – Merlin knows it’s out of character, but – no. Maiming yourself. I’m not worth that._

‘I know I grew up knowing fuck all about all this, magic and everything, so I might be wrong – but Pettigrew had this weird, phantom hand. I could just replace my arm. Even if I can’t. I don’t care.’

 

_Potter –_

‘No. You can’t say that. You can’t tell me this isn’t worth that much.’

Two large gashes in the meat of his right thumb, a steady pulse of blood to paint across an alabaster cheek and jaw, and a steady, quiet tap of liquid dripping into a pool on Malfoy’s collar. Enough for him to feel every press of Harry’s hand, a desperate proxy for the press of his intentions. ‘There’s no way you aren’t. I can’t – it’s better for everyone, you know?’ Harry laughed humourlessly, taking a jarring look over one shoulder to the looming bulk of the school. ‘They talk about you in lessons. They – it’s… it’s scary, for them.’

 

 _God forbid some little first years should see my face,_ came the drawl. _There’s that awful statue of a troll on the second floor. They’ll get used to me, same as that._

‘The troll on the second floor isn’t an old student,’ Harry huffed. ‘It’s not someone they know – someone I know.’

 

_This isn’t about the students._

 

‘I hate hearing them whisper about it,’ he admitted, as he drew a tight circle in his own blood. ‘I told you – I saw one putting a scarf on you, yesterday.’

 

 _I thought that was rather amusing_ , Malfoy told him, and Harry could hear the smirk in the shape of the words as they vibrated in his mind. _Though I am slightly offended by being adorned as a Hufflepuff_.

 

‘This isn’t funny,’ Harry pulled the hood of the cloak tighter, careful to leave his face uncovered to Malfoy as if his conversation was held in gentle embrace with a living man, and not the stricken face of a stone figure.

 

 _No_ , Malfoy murmured. _But. Potter, there isn’t much left to say on this_. _I – will I have to watch you do it?_

Harry sighed, his forehead tipping to thunk gently to a cold counterpart. ‘It’s a potion. Mostly. Hermione says we’ll have to pour it over you. I want to make it out here, but. Well, she says I’ll upset the students.’

 

 _Granger has never been in the habit of being wrong,_ and Harry hears a smile again, and smiles back.

 

‘I’m thinking a tent, or something. They don’t have to know. I dunno, I’ll just – I’ll keep my arm covered. We can look for things to replace it with,’ Harry mused, as he brought up his free hand, scraped at the cuts with his bottom lip in his teeth to bear the pain. ‘You can help me.’

 

_If I had any money left, and it didn’t belong to the Ministry, I’d buy you a solid gold arm, Potter._

 

* * *

 

 

‘I’m starting to think we should talk to someone about this,’ Hermione told him over the dusty, black-bound book pulled close to his face, tilted just enough to wash the old paper in a yellow light from the fireplace. Rereading the spell, over and over again. ‘With the list of ingredients, and the legality of it all. How very illegal it will be. The headmistress…’

 

‘She’ll stop me doing it,’ he tried not to glare at her, fixing his eyes on the mantelpiece beyond her shoulder. Marble. Of course it was; see marble when you look out the window, when you get dressed, when you close your eyes at night after midnight has passed and you’re forced back into the warm.

 

‘Honestly, Harry, I don’t know. We’d be saving a life, and she’ll understand that. I really think so,’ her fingernails tapped at the piping of the chair arm in a nervous rhythm. ‘It might make it easier.’

 

‘She won’t believe me.’

 

‘I’ll come with you.’

 

Harry looked at her then. Tears welling up as she held on too tightly to a book in her lap, the grey-purple shadows betraying an absence of sleep under her eyes. Harry knew then, that she understood. That she cared.

 

It wasn’t Ron. It wasn’t Fred. She was here for him anyway.

 

‘Thanks, ‘Mione.’ Harry slipped to his knees, and grasped one of her hands between his. ‘Thank you.’

 

* * *

 

 

‘Mr Potter. Miss Granger…’

 

Harry didn’t know exactly how old Minerva McGonagall was, but as he watched her sink into her desk chair with a ginger effort betraying a painful stiffness to her back, he felt a twinge of guilt. The war had probably aged her more than her years, but he’d probably done it more, and here he was – back again, causing problems.

 

‘I know it’s –‘

 

‘Illegal. Horrible,’ the Headmistress finished for him, her pair of round spectacles tossed down to her desk without much care. ‘Absolutely, monstrously horrible.’

 

Hermione nodded, sat beside him and clutching the offending book like it would bite her without a strong enough grip clawed around its worn spine.

 

‘I can’t imagine how this might even come to happen,’ McGonagall said to the empty space between him and Hermione, as if she felt so disappointed in them that she couldn’t bear to look. ‘The cost of this alone, Mr Potter. I am truly unsure I can allow you to injure yourself in this manner.’

 

‘I have to do it,’ Harry said, resolute. ‘Malfoy doesn’t deserve this.’

 

‘If it is possible for this to even work-‘

 

‘Harry has witnessed it. With the Triwizard cup. It’s not simple, but we could manage it.’ Hermione’s voice cracked at his name, and her fingernails bit at old leather. ‘We understand this is a lot to ask…’

 

‘Indeed it is.’ The headmistress met his eye then, and in his gaze back Harry tried to convey all his assurance, desperation, every bit of confidence and need that he might have had left in him. ‘To allow you to perform dark magic on school grounds. To allow you to… maim yourself.’

 

‘To let me try to save a student.’ Harry’s breath caught in bubbles high in his chest. ‘I just want that. One less of us taken away. One person I can stop Voldemort killing.’

 

‘Mr Potter…’

 

‘We can’t leave him like this.’

 

A heavy sigh, as she held his gaze unblinking. ‘No. We cannot.’

 

* * *

 

 

 

_She said yes?_

 

‘She agreed with me. She’s not happy, but – if I can keep it from the students, if Hermione can source things through the Ministry, so we aren’t buying off Death Eaters – she’s agreed.’

 

_Merlin’s dick._

 

Harry laughed, a harsh bark that turned to a cough. ‘It’ll take weeks. To get the ingredients.’ He squeezed his hand once, twice to encourage the flow, sighing as red spiderwebbed out from under his skin across the wet marble. An umbrella swayed above, pattering quietly with the rain fall. ‘I don’t know how long this is going to take.’

 

_It doesn’t matter._

‘I’ll keep coming out here every night, keep updating you, I promise.’

_Potter, really. It doesn’t matter how long. I just can’t – I don’t believe you can actually do this._

 

‘Why are you surprised? I’m pretty famous for stuff like this,’ Harry gave unforgiving stone a wide smile.

 

_Stupid, impossible shit?_

 

‘Exactly.’

 

_That is difficult to argue with._

* * *

 

 

‘I’m not exactly comfortable with it, but we know where Mr Malfoy is buried,’ Hermione mused over a breakfast shared on a cold Sunday morning in his rooms, rain still beating out a rhythm against the thick glass of his clouded windows. ‘And, well. You’re determined to cover flesh.’

 

‘I am, yeah,’ Harry picked at his toast, shrugging to Hermione’s answering sigh.

 

‘Yes. So, I believe we’re stuck at ‘blood of the enemy’.’

 

‘Which is anyone who has attacked him, ever?’

 

‘I can’t work out if that makes us lucky, or not,’ Hermione said. ‘It might mean chasing down Death Eaters ourselves. Or hoping the Ministry will let us question them.’

 

‘Anyone who’s attacked him.’

 

‘Yes, Harry,’ Hermione replied, her tone now impatient as she clinked a teaspoon around her cup, taking care not to splash her reading. ‘You’ll need to ask Malfoy who we could use, and I suppose we should hope they’re still alive.’ She grimaced.

 

Harry looked down into his own tea, pensive. ‘Would just hitting him count?’

 

‘It would,’ she said over the rim of her cup. ‘But since you’ll be the servant, you can’t also be the enemy.’

 

‘No, but you could.’ Harry gave her a tired smile. ‘Didn’t you hit him, once?’

 

Hermione sighed, closing her eyes in one long, exhausted blink before smiling back at him. ‘Yes. I suppose I did.’

 

‘Job done,’ Harry leant back, dramatically snapping the book in front of him closed with a flick of his wand.

 

‘It better not be a lot of blood,’ Hermione moaned.

 

'Unwilling. Brilliant.'

 

Hermione threw her spoon at him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It was October and raining still when they worked together in tandem to raise a large, battered canvas tent at the edge of the forest, sun long set behind the hills as the headmistress waited at the archway, sheltered from the weather. Hermione took the lead with easy, sweeping gestures, and Harry mirrored with aching bones that reminded him of his failures. As fabric slid into place, Malfoy’s moonlit form was slowly edged into dark respite, before being lit again by Hermione’s torches.

 

‘It’s rather horrible,’ she told him, as they checked the poles and began to unpack supplies. ‘He looks so scared.’

 

Harry nodded, reforming a large oak table to set it heavily onto the damp ground with a thud. ‘He can hear you, remember.’

 

Hermione winced then, pausing as she leant over the chest they’d levitated down from the potions classroom. ‘Sorry. It’s still rather difficult for me to believe.’

 

Harry added a large, thick bottomed cauldron to the table, grunting as he lifted it. A cauldron big enough to fit an arm. So near to Malfoy and something so heavy, he couldn’t stomach levitating it. What if he made a mistake?

 

He watched, arms crossed and nails dug into the meat of his bicep, as Hermione set up the base of the potion. Spelled a large fire underneath, turned this and that, set up pots and bottles in neat rows across the workplace, in her element.

 

From where they stood at the table, Malfoy was turned so slightly away, as if he was checking fearfully for unwanted encroachments over their shoulder. The scabs on Harry’s palm burned, and he wanted to ask if Malfoy could see – if he saw everything they were doing, what was going in the cauldron, how scared Hermione looked, how determined they both looked. Did Malfoy feel assured? Or maybe they looked out of their depth, and he was losing confidence in them. In Harry.

 

He broke away a mess of scabbing with the nail of his thumb, his arm tensed to reach out, to walk over. To ask, or reassure. With Hermione present, it felt off. Too intimate.

 

‘That’s it, so far,’ Hermione startled him, reaching out to touch him gently on the shoulder. ‘Now you have to – ‘

 

‘Start it, yeah. I know,’ Harry sighed, shoulders heavy. ‘The first bit is… Would it be okay, if I just – can I talk to him for a second?’

 

Hermione gripped him stronger then, and her eyes were soft when she looked from him to Malfoy’s statue and back again. ‘Of course.’ She squeezed once, then disappeared back through the folds of the tent door, into the rain.

 

Harry picked at his hand again, until his palm was slick. This was it. He slid one hand over the other, until red pooled in every line and crevice across his fingers. He walked to the statue, and cupped a porcelain white jaw in both hands.

 

_This is it._

 

‘This is it,’ Harry echoed.

 

_Potter. You don’t have to do this._

‘You’re really wrong.’

 

A deep, sad sigh. _I’m not. I’m as surprised as you are, but I don’t want you to get hurt._

‘I know,’ Harry said, and he really did. ‘This might hurt you, too. The first ingredient –‘

_The one useful thing my father has done for me in a while_ , Malfoy interrupted, with a short laugh. _I’ve had a long time to think. Potter, if you need to destroy this - this statue I’m in -_

‘Too late now, I’ve already bought a really big cauldron,’ Harry gasped out, wishing for the thousandth time he had grey eyes to look into, a warm arm to hold onto. ‘Don’t let the really big cauldron go to waste, Malfoy.’

 

 _Well, when you put it like that,_ Malfoy’s laugh rang through his head.  _Merlin, your students are going to hate me. The Death Eater who stole Harry Potter’s arm._

‘It’s not stealing if I give it,’ Harry chuckled. ‘’Willingly sacrificed’. I promise.’

 

_Fuck, Potty. And you’ve given me barely any time to go shopping for Christmas._

Harry coughed sharply, fighting back the tears that were stinging behind his eyes. ‘Are you ready?’

 

 _If I must be_ , came the sigh.

 

‘Okay.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

Harry was shaking now, hands gripping too hard as he eased open the long, stiff wooden box in his hands.

 

‘Bone of the father, unknowingly given. You will renew your son.’ May he never have to dig up a grave again. Never have to stretch the neck of his t shirt to cover his mouth as his wand cuts open a dead man’s arm, peels away the white-pink of a radius bone and floats it to him.

 

Harry tipped the box and the piece of Lucius Malfoy tipped, slid, fell into the cauldron.

 

The potion before him flashed, smoked, and the colour of bright lightning blue was shadowed on his eyelids when he blinked rapidly at the change. Hermione, at his elbow, hissed quietly. They both know what ingredient is next. Marble Malfoy, browning blood smeared on both cheeks like a florid flush, stared horrified beyond them.

 

‘Okay,’ Harry said roughly, and took off his robe, rolled up his left sleeve until the curve of his shoulder was visible. Hermione worried her lip, but eventually reached out slowly to grip the knife, slim fingers shaking as they close around the handle.

 

Spelled sharp enough to cut to bone with the gentlest of presses, Harry knew it would make short work of his arm. He held it poised over the bubbling liquid surface. Lucius Malfoy, then him, then Hermione’s blood in the large dull vial on the table. Harry marveled at the strangeness of it; together they were going to build a person.

 

‘Harry,’ Hermione whispered, and her left hand twitched over her pocketed wand. Harry had refused pain potions, spells, anything that would help, too scared it would interfere, and he remembers Pettigrew’s yelp of pain in that graveyard and he believes it’s the right choice.

 

‘I’m okay.’ Deep breaths, in and out.

 

‘Okay,’ she told him, but it was barely a whimper.

 

Harry sighed, gasped, sighed again, then steeled his jaw, gritted out the words.

 

‘Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed. You will revive your master.’

 

He kept his eyes steady, stared at Draco Malfoy, rendered so terrified in alabaster, and he nodded. Hermione’s arm rose, then fell.

 

Everything went white.


	9. Blood

Harry’s eyes blurred, colour to colour to flashes of Hermione as her voice cut shrilly through his skull. Every feeling in his body flooded to his shoulder, each pulse of his heart a terrifying drum beat that forced life out of his arm. He felt wet, and saw red, and his side felt heavy yet floating as he crashed to the floor.

 

Hermione thudded down beside him, and she swam in and out of view as tears streamed down both of their faces. He felt her tip him gently, beach him on his right side as it took all of his strength just to continue to breathe. White light lapped around his body, swooped in and out of the corner of his eye as he keened, allowed his temple to grind into the cold, stony soil beneath him.

 

‘Harry! Hold on, Harry – I’m healing it – just breathe…. Breathe.’ Hermione’s fingertips dragged quickly across his jawline as her voice vibrated through him, echoey, dull, like they were both underwater. Drowning.

 

He closed his eyes and saw her, younger, underwater. Hogwarts robes, and curly hair floating around her like a soft halo.

 

He saw Cedric, and a graveyard.

 

He shuddered in one breath, then a second.

 

The pain waned, and the thud of his heartbeat softened. He turned his face further into the ground, drunk, lost. ‘Malfoy…’

 

‘One thing at a time, Harry,’ Hermione cooed to him, from his left or his right or above him, he didn’t know. His body changed to numbness, and he scrabbled and failed to control his limbs – one less now. One less limb. Malfoy.

 

‘Hermione…! The potion…’

 

He scraped his fingernails through the dirt, feeling all at once as though he was falling, as if the only way he wouldn’t spin off into nothingness was through the grip of his fingertips, and his stomach rolled violently. ‘The potion – you need to do it! Don’t waste –‘

 

Hermione’s grip found him more surely then, or maybe the numbness receded enough to feel her hand as it tightened on his shoulder. One pull and she swam more clearly into his sight; her face streaked with tears, her nose striped across with red like war paint – his blood, on her. His blood all over her robes, and in her hair.

 

‘Hermione, please. Finish the potion.’ He blinked away tears with a forcefulness, tried to show her an imploring expression that the reediness of his voice lacked.

 

She sobbed, and her eyes sliced back and forth from his own, to his shoulder, and back. Her wand span a few more loops, brows furrowed, until she nodded, and his heart burst with love at the expression on her face, suddenly resolute with brave determination.

 

Her grip loosened, and Harry allowed himself to fall backwards, the few inches to the ground. He stared at the canvas roof above him, and hoped so fiercely his chest felt as if it would burst.

A hiss sang through the air around him.

 

‘Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe.’ Her voice filled the tent, shaking but strong. The hiss became a blinding flash of white-hot light, and Harry closed his eyes in pain. She was doing it. They were doing it.

 

He heard thudding and scraping, and knew she was beginning to levitate the cauldron. Harry made an aborted attempt at rolling to his side, gasping at the effort and the shriek of pain from his left side. Tried again, but only succeeded in forcing the air too fast from his lungs as he slumped back. Giving up, he turned his head, allowing his ear to scrape painfully through the dirt.

 

He could see Hermione’s feet, and further forward, the bright white of Malfoy’s. He could see her move towards him. He heard the cauldron tip, and her gasp of effort, and the wet rasping of the liquid hitting the statue.

 

He could see it run to the floor.

 

He could see white turn. Change to black. Soften from marble, from stone, to fabric, and leather.

 

He could see Malfoy’s feet move.

 

‘Potter!’

 

Harry sighed, his shoulders slumped. His vision blurred.

 

The world darkened to black around him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

‘I suppose I didn’t really believe it – that you were in there - ’

 

‘You let him cut his arm off when _you didn’t believe I was in there_?!’

 

‘Don’t you dare yell at me, after all we’ve done – ‘

 

Harry pulled back into consciousness like he was dragging himself from a pool of mud, fighting to open his eyes. A grey blur slowly cleared into focus, with his glasses still firmly on his face.

 

Above him was the familiar, warm stone canopy of the hospital wing. Groggy, he tried to reach out, grasp the sheets covering his chest. One arm flapped forward, imprecise. The other…

 

‘There will be no arguing in my hospital wing. If I may – oh, Harry dear,’ the sharp tone of Madam Pomfrey’s voice soothed to a near whisper as she appeared in his vision, face wrought with tension. ‘You’re in quite a state,’ she admonished, but her mouth changed to a soft smile.

 

Harry blinked a few times, dragging himself to sit up, and Pomfrey helped him with a solid palm at the top of his back. Together, they pulled him to sit comfortably in his hospital bed, blankets adjusted carefully over his lap.

 

Beside his bed stood Hermione, covered in blood. The arms of her cardigan where soaked through, so heavy with it that they were almost dripping. She looked at him with a confusion of joy and worry. Beside her, stood McGonagall, her face pinched and unimpressed, and…

 

Malfoy was there.

 

He was real.

 

‘Harry!’ Hermione thudded into the seat beside his bed, hand seizing a gentle grip on his forearm.

 

‘Hullo,’ he managed. He tried to move to hold a hand over hers – nothing. No left arm, now, Potter. He resisted the urge to tilt his jaw just slightly, to look at the damage they’d done. Instead, he sighed a giddy laugh, shifting his right arm to offer his palm to her; she took it, vice-like, and smiled at him.

 

‘I can’t believe it worked,’ he heard Malfoy murmur, in a voice Harry forgot could echo throughout a room and fill a space beyond Harry’s own skull, a voice that could be quiet and far away and not only in his ear, and he dragged up a heavy head to look at him properly.

 

Malfoy was just as he remembered him, months ago and just earlier today from every curve and angle of that marble statue. The lightest shade of peach skin was shrouded in a heavy wool coat, a sharp white shirt collar peeking through, blond hair mid length and messy around tired eyes. Eyes that were meeting his, with a fierceness Harry felt unsettled by in the bottom of his chest.

 

‘I can,’ Harry replied, and gave his best grin, teeth bared.

 

Malfoy snorted, and Harry felt his stomach dance inside him.

 

‘Indeed, you are very lucky it did,’ the headmistress observed from behind Hermione. Her expression was unreadable, not so hugely different from the face Harry knew from every Transfiguration lesson and staff meeting; but beyond Hermione’s shoulder, he could see her worn and wrinkled hand, gripping tightly on the back of the chair, the sharp lines of knuckles pushing through parchment skin. He smiled at her too, softer and apologetic.

 

‘If I might ask, what was the plan afterwards?’ Pomfrey smoothed over Harry’s blankets in a mothering gesture. From the way she looked at him, he felt she was avoiding his arm – lack of arm - stump? Harry didn’t know when he’d bring himself to look, either.

 

‘Erm, didn’t really have one,’ he admitted, and in the corner of his eye, Hermione winced.

 

‘Indeed.’ McGonagall sighed. ‘Something to be discussed in the immediate future.’ Harry’s eyes met hers, and she gave him the smallest of nods. ‘Before then, Mr Malfoy and I have work to do. A speedy recovery, Professor Potter,’ she added, with an exasperated smile. ‘We will speak shortly.’

 

She turned to leave, and Malfoy turned with her, the grip he’d had on the wrought iron frame of the bed relaxing into long, pale fingers sliding over metal, then releasing. His eyes met Harry’s with a mess of emotions, unreadable and inexplicable.

 

Even as the connection broke and Malfoy moved away, Harry felt his eyes drag across a sharp cheekbone and a mess of hair, and eventually a strong shoulder and sloping back as he and the headmistress left quietly through oak doors.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

‘They just need to declare Malfoy to the Ministry,’ Hermione informed him, as he clinked the rim of his glass impatiently across his bottom teeth. Clink clink clink, looking at the door, until the glass was taken away from him in annoyance.

 

‘I know – I just…’ he looked at her, the scrubbed pink skin on her face from where Madame Pomfrey had divested her of Harry’s drying blood and the exhausted expression on her face, and felt a small stone of guilt drop into place in his gut. ‘This is all – weird.’

 

‘It is,’ she agreed to the glass held in her lap, gripped with both hands. Should Harry feel envious already? ‘I can’t believe we didn’t think about what we’d do – about your arm.’

 

Harry looked in his own lap; one hand, worn and brown, cracks and scabs still on his knuckles. His wand resting in the dip of the blanket between his thighs. He thought about Peter Pettigrew’s silver hand, strangling him so forcefully until life had left his body. He suppressed a shudder.

 

‘It’s not a massive problem,’ he told her, picking up his wand and rolling the wood between his fingers. ‘I have magic, and I can do all my lessons one handed, at least for a while. I can get used to it.’

 

‘Harry, I really think you’re underestimating how difficult this might be.’

 

‘I’m not, I promise. I just – I knew I needed to do this. So,’ he dropped his wand, rubbed his palm across the top of his thigh. ‘I knew I’d just have to deal with it. I can do that.’

 

‘Oh, Harry,’ she smiled then, sad. ‘Of course you can. We’ll find something, too. A new arm.’ A heavy sigh. ‘I just don’t want this to change your life.’

 

‘I’ve definitely been though worse,’ he smiled, and took back his drink.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry woke to the quiet scuffling of a window being closed on the far wall of the Infirmary, the sound of the frame meeting frame a click loud enough to jump him back to consciousness with a small start, like when he woke from a bad dream.

 

Ever a woman with a sixth sense, Madam Pomfrey noticed his waking from ten yards and a darkening room. ‘Sorry, dear. The fresh air is always a help,’ she soothed, moving over with quiet footsteps. ‘But it’s getting much too cold in the evenings. You have a visitor,’ she added, taking his empty glass and disappearing into her office.

 

Harry turned on his hip, and saw Malfoy sitting by his bed.

 

Oh.

 

Silence stretched between them.

 

‘It was easier when you were a statue,’ Harry grumbled, rubbing at his eyes. As he pulled his hand away, he saw that Malfoy hadn’t broken his gaze, staring at his far shoulder, but Harry avoided following the look.

 

‘You lost a lot of blood,’ the voice was gruff, sore-sounding. Malfoy’s hands were gripped tightly together on his lap, fingers twisted with the force. ‘Even before Granger could do anything.’

 

‘I’ve taken a lot of potions,’ Harry confided. ‘There’s no harm really done.’

 

‘No harm – fucking Circe, Potter.’

 

‘I’m not going to apologise for it, so don’t bother.’ Harry pulled himself to sitting, wobbling a little at the effort. ‘Everyone seems to want me to. I did what I meant to do.’

 

A strong hand suddenly had him by the bicep, and the movement was easier. When he looked up, Malfoy was leant to him, eyebrows pulled tight. He looks tired, Harry thought. How much does it weary you, being forced to stand still for months? How exhausted must his mind be; not able to sleep or blink or move at all. Forced to keep only Harry for company.

 

He expected the hand to move, withdraw like Harry was infectious, like cutting your own limbs off is catching. It didn’t; it lingered, thumb and fingers a soft ring of pressure around the muscle of Harry’s arm. Malfoy met his eyes then.

 

‘Potter.’ One word, but it was heavy. Malfoy’s face was tight, and so was his voice, like he was trying not to cry, and Harry’s throat closed a bit in sympathy. He waited for the next bit, the thank you, the awkward you’re welcome, them parting ways.

 

‘You absolute fucking idiot.’

 

‘Well, it’s definitely you,’ Harry sighed, and betrayed himself with a smile. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said anyway, just to get a reaction. Malfoy’s nose wrinkled inelegantly, and the grip on his arm slid downwards, to a ghosting hold around the top of his forearm.

 

‘If I say thank you, you might do something else incredibly stupid,’ Malfoy countered, eyebrow raised. ‘Then you’ll be hopping about on one leg, too.’

 

Harry laughed, from deep inside his chest, head tilted back. As with Hermione, he turned his arm, presented his palm. A pale hand slid into the space. Harry gripped like it was a lifeline.

 

Malfoy gripped back, and Harry heard the slightest of sighs from parted lips. ‘I don’t really believe it.’

 

‘Me neither.’

 

‘I’m not dead.’

 

‘Hermione cut off my arm.’

 

Malfoy’s turn to laugh, though it was quieter than Harry’s, more incredulous. ‘If the Ministry give me my house and my money back, a solid gold one will just have to do.’

 

‘Will they?’ Harry asked. Malfoy shrugged, a fluid motion, and his free hand moved to push a fringe of fine hair out of his eyes. The hand in Harry’s own held steadfast. Harry squeezed it, gently; how weird it was, to see tendons move under skin and fingers flex on their own. Malfoy was pale, but it was miles and oceans away from the cold dead colour of the marble. Harry could see aristocratic fine blue veins and a brown scar across one knuckle, and if he strained he could run over it with the pad of his thumb.

 

‘I believe they have to. But I will be investigated.’

 

‘I’ll testify,’ Harry assured him, and Malfoy’s head tilted back in defeat.

 

‘Potter, I’ve come back from the dead indebted to you – can we avoid adding more?’

 

‘You’re not ‘indebted’, at all. I didn’t –‘ Harry sighed. ‘I didn’t do it for that.’

 

‘Why, then?’

 

‘Because I wanted to,’ Harry said, and shrugged like it was more valid an answer than it actually was. It was better than saying ‘I don’t know’.

 

Or ‘I missed you’, or ‘I needed you to be real’.

 

‘Either way, I’m stuck here until I find out,’ Malfoy sat back heavily in his seat.

 

‘Where are you staying?’

 

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘One of the students saw me coming out of McGonagall’s office, and it didn’t go well. They ran away,’ he clarified at Harry’s confused look. ‘I’m a Hogwarts ghost, now.’

 

‘I have rooms, as a professor,’ Harry started. ‘There’s another bedroom –‘

 

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

 

‘It’s not a debt thing!’


	10. Fire

Dressing was the first time Harry really felt it; how weird it was, to have nothing where there used to be a solid, distinct part of his body.

 

Even as he stood, his balance changed, felt off. His left side felt floaty, ungrounded. Harry supposed that made sense – arms are heavy. Hermione looked on with a pinched face as Madam Pomfrey pinned his sleeve, careful, and Harry fixed his eyes on her, avoided looking.

 

They’d talked so little about it. Once Hermione had agreed to do it, it had been question solved for him. He didn’t know what was left. How it’d been healed, if at all. Was there any arm at all, or was it gone at the shoulder, where bone met bone? Was fresh skin now sealing an unnatural parting? Did he want to know, anyway? How long could he avoid it?

 

‘I’ll start owling,’ Hermione broke him out of his thoughts, his mind spinning enough that he’d taken hold of the bed frame for balance without realising. ‘Some kind of spelled prosthetic, or something. They must have them at St. Mungos.’

 

‘Yeah, I bet people are always blowing their bits off,’ Harry nodded, and smiled at her sharp look in return.

 

‘I just want to make sure it won’t affect your teaching,’ she answered. ‘Harry – ‘

 

‘I won’t scare them with it,’ he interrupted, defensive.

 

‘That’s not what I was going to say,’ she sighed. ‘I know you love the school. I think you’re supposed to – I was really glad, when you decided to teach,’ she smiled, and Harry sat down on the bed across from her, reached for her hand, touched his fingers to the back of hers. She held his hand gently between her own, patted it down towards her lap in a smiling gesture. ‘I think you’ll be good at it. I don’t want this to get in the way.’

 

‘It won’t,’ Harry said, and believed it. ‘Moody had a peg leg and a weird eye, and he did okay.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry took the walk back to his rooms slowly. Too fast, and his robes, so carefully arranged around his shoulder, would flap; too strong a movement and a spike of pain cut clean up his side, cracking over his ribs and focusing on his arm, lack of arm, like a white hot poker pressed directly into his bone. Even his steps had to be taken gingerly – one awkward stair, too low in comparison to the rest, had jarred him, and he had been forced to stop, take a breath to refill his chest that had been so immediately and forcefully emptied by the pain.

 

As Harry came around the corner to the portrait that was the entrance to the Gryffindor Head of House rooms, he nearly knocked into someone, and another shock of pain twisted at his face as he stooped, breathing sharply.

 

‘Potter.’ A warm hand had him by the arm, and he was gently pushed until the wall supported his back. He tipped his head back, grateful, and sighed at Malfoy with a smile.

 

‘I’m fine.’

 

‘You’re in pain,’ Malfoy’s eyes narrowed.

 

‘I’m fine,’ Harry insisted, though he was betrayed a little by the little gasping breaths he was forcing in and out, the fire in his shoulder dulling to a pounding ache.

 

Malfoy rolled his eyes then, and a familiar hawthorn wand made an appearance from his pocket. White light floated from the tip towards Harry, past his line of sight and to his shoulder, and the ache eased until it was almost gone and any last dull pulse of blood calmed and left.

 

Harry sighed, and his posture slackened.

 

‘Glad to know it works,’ Malfoy said, looking at the wand in his hand with a cool expression, pulling back and giving Harry room to slump slightly against the tapestry at his back.

 

‘Oh. Yeah, me too,’ Harry replied, sheepish.

 

Malfoy smirked at him, and Harry felt a strange, euphoric giggle bubble up in his chest.

 

‘So, this is weird,’ Harry rubbed at his hair, awkward.

 

Malfoy shrugged, stepped back to rest his weight coolly on one foot. ‘It has definitely been weirder.’

 

‘Are you – how are you?’ Harry eased up from the wall, fiddled with his own wand, held in trouser straps on the outside of his thigh.

 

‘Anything would be better than that,’ Malfoy’s eyes were sharp. ‘I’m fine. I’m – real.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Harry’s jaw tilted down, pensive. ‘I guess it was months.’

 

‘Forever,’ Malfoy agreed, and when Harry met his eyes again they were intense. ‘Potter – ‘

 

‘Fuck off,’ the words overflowed out of Harry, unbidden. ‘Don’t say thanks, I don’t – ‘

 

‘Potter,’ Malfoy said again, this time punctuated with a step forward. Harry’s jaw clenched, solid, and his shoulders squared. He didn’t want to hear it. ‘Tell me your password so I can take a shower.’

 

Oh.

 

Harry laughed then, loud, and it hurt so much the noise petered into a wheeze, and he let himself fall back to the wall, hitting it with his good shoulder with a gentle thud. Malfoy was back, and a gigantic, monumental, terrible prat. In the flesh and the soul and the stupid, expensive clothes. Harry felt so happy, so surprised and so euphoric that he could float, just drift away through the corridor like a balloon.

 

‘It’s ‘vipertooth’. You prick.’

 

‘Thank you,’ Malfoy told him, firmly and with such deadpan conviction Harry’s eyebrows raised, and a smile danced around his bright grey eyes. ‘You’re an absolutely colossal imbecile, but thank you.’

 

‘I said no,’ Harry smiled, and pushed him towards the painting of a winged lion, resplendent on field of green bordered by a forest of rosebushes.

 

‘Vipertooth,’ Malfoy answered, and Harry followed him into his living room.

 

Books where still everywhere, piled in haphazard stacks on every surface like an imaginary fortress in a child’s game of war. The smell of dust hit Harry in the back of his throat, and he winced.

Malfoy’s wand made a reappearance, and leather-bound paper began tumbling, flying around the room, twirling into neat stacks like soldiers at the wall near Harry’s large fireplace.

 

‘You don’t have to,’ Harry started, grabbing one book from the air and placing it down on a table.

 

Malfoy glanced at him over a shoulder, unimpressed. ‘Potter, I’ve been stuck in one place, without a wand, since time immemorial. If you try to stop me, I’ll bite you.’

 

‘Harsh,’ Harry smiled, dropping down gingerly into an armchair. ‘The bathroom is in the first door,’ he flapped his one hand to somewhere vaguely left of them.

 

Malfoy nodded, and the last book landed with a small thud atop a not inconsequential barrier of textbooks, spellbooks and tomes of general iniquity that formed Harry’s mad collection of desperation. Harry sighed, and let his head tip back to rest on the chair. He’d done it. He could barely believe it. There Draco Malfoy was, in the middle of his living room, all sharp lines and blond hair and cleaning up like a house elf. He swallowed down a laugh.

 

Exhaustion pulled at the edge of his mind, stronger than the slight rhythmic ache of his body. He sighed as Malfoy made his way through the doorway, and the handle clicked back into place.

 

He did it. Malfoy was here.

 

He’d saved him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Hunger pulled him slowly back to the surface of awareness, and Harry opened his eyes to see a roaring fire and Malfoy, slumped in his own chair across from him. Grey eyes reflected the flame as Malfoy stared into the hearth, skin lit by the yellows and reds in a way that reminded Harry of the times he’d stood near the forest, watching sunset glide over stone.

 

Malfoy was dressed in his white shirt and grey wool trousers, legs stretched out towards the hearth and a sharp chin propped in one hand. Harry grunted, dragging himself to sit properly and rubbing at his eyes, knocking his glasses sideways. He tried to reach to fix them, with his left hand – nothing. He wondered how long it took, until you didn’t need to remember every time before you tried.

 

‘I’ve rung for food,’ a low voice from the other man as his gaze shifted from the fireplace. ‘Scared the shit out of a house elf.’

 

Harry took off his glasses, rubbed them ineffectively with his one hand against his robes before replacing them. ‘Great, I’m starving.’

 

‘Granger was here. She saw you were asleep,’ Malfoy said, adjusting himself in his chair. ‘She said she’d owl you.’

 

Harry nodded, closed his eyes. ‘I told her I’d visit her next weekend. After Teddy.’

 

‘My cousin,’ Malfoy murmured after a moment, and Harry opened his eyes then, looked at him. ‘My aunt, Andromeda – ‘

 

‘I told her about you,’ Harry interrupted, voice quiet, embarrassed. ‘She knew. About the statue.’

 

‘No doubt she’d hate me,’ Malfoy turned, addressed the fire.

 

‘She wouldn’t. Teddy wouldn’t.’ Harry watched him, how his throat moved when he swallowed, how his shoulders where tight. ‘You should meet him.’

 

‘I’ve never been one for children,’ Malfoy looked at him then, eyes tired, a small smirk sad and without conviction.

 

‘Try it,’ Harry implored. ‘Just come with me, once. You owe me,’ he added, joking, but the smile on his face soon fell as Malfoy’s darkened.

 

‘Is that what you’re going to do, use this to guilt me into whatever you’d like?’ Malfoy’s tone was sharp, eyes hard. Harry felt his own neck bristle, ready to answer back with the same harshness, his hand gripping harder on the arm of his chair. Is that what they’d go back to, fighting again?

 

‘No.’ Harry focused on relaxing his fingers, one after the other. ‘No. It was a stupid joke.’

 

‘You must realise I can’t repay you for this.’

 

‘I don’t expect you to. Look, see Teddy, don’t. I think he could use some family, that’s all.’

 

‘What good would having a Death Eater as family do him?’ Malfoy’s voice was harder still, rough like he’d been talking for hours. ‘He’s better off without.’

 

‘You’re not a Death Eater.’

 

Malfoy moved, fast, fast enough it made Harry jerk in surprise. In one sharp movement he was in front of him, standing over him between his chair and the fire. Malfoy’s leg twitched nervously as he pulled at his cuff, yanked his shirt up to expose his arm, and the mark.

 

‘Then do indeed tell me what this means, Potter.’

 

Harry looked up at his face, avoided the lurid tattoo on Malfoy’s pale skin. ‘It means you were a Death Eater.’

 

Malfoy’s face twisted, disgusted, harrowed. ‘There’s no difference.’

 

‘Tell me what this means, then,’ Harry countered, tipping his head back and pushing away his fringe with his hand. They both paused for a moment, and Malfoy huffed though his nose.

 

‘It means you’re Harry fucking Potter.’

 

‘It means I was a pawn in all of it. It means I didn’t have any choice,’ Harry countered. He edged forward in his seat, grunting a little with the effort. He grabbed at Malfoy’s wrist, holding on tighter when he tried to pull away. ‘That’s what that means too.’

 

Malfoy considered him, face in shadow as the fire lit his back in warm yellow. Harry furrowed his eyebrows back at him, grip solid. He looked down, finally, at the mark; it was a dull grey-black, lifeless and motionless. Harry shifted his grip to slide up Malfoy’s forearm, and drag the pad of his thumb across the lines, as if he could smudge it like so much old ink dried on skin. He heard Malfoy sigh, and let go.

 

‘You’re such a bloody martyr,’ Malfoy said, accusing.

 

‘You’re so bloody dramatic,’ Harry answered.

 

Malfoy snorted, turning away, looking at the fire again. Harry studied the profile of his face, watched the tension in his body relax, his shoulders slump downwards.

 

‘I don’t know what I do, now,’ he admitted, more to the fire than to Harry, and Harry’s heart twinged a little in sympathy. ‘Maybe I’ll get the Manor back. If I even want it. Maybe I’ll have money. What then?’

 

‘I don’t know,’ Harry said, voice soft. ‘I know I don’t – I don’t know what it’s like. But I want to help,’ he added.

 

‘You really don’t think you’ve done enough?’

 

‘Maybe I owe you,’ Harry said.

 

Malfoy turned back, incredulous. ‘What the fuck –‘

 

‘I dunno if I would have taken the job, if you weren’t here,’ Harry interrupted, pulling his hand up to rub at his eyes again. ‘I’d probably just be hiding away, or something. But I didn’t, and I’m happy,’ he said, as he met Malfoy’s eyes, sure. ‘I’m at home and I’m doing something good, and I’m happy, and you’re okay.’

 

‘And you have one arm.’ All energy seemed to escape from Malfoy, like he was deflated. He slowly collapsed downwards, dropped himself into his chair with a rush of air. ‘You seem to be forgetting about the arm.’

 

‘I’m not,’ Harry smiled. ‘Hermione doesn’t get it either. I just don’t see the point in being upset about it.’

 

‘It’s a shitty trade, Potter. That’s why.’

 

‘It’s a loss I can take.’ Harry’s voice was firm, then. Strong. ‘I couldn’t take the other one.’

 

Malfoy stared at him, his face in a soft frown. ‘I’m not as worth it as you believe I am.’

 

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it with an inaudible click of his teeth. You are, he wanted to say. Of course you are. You wouldn’t kill him, Malfoy. I watched it, and you couldn’t. You saved my life, and I have no idea what it could have cost you.

 

‘Then be worth it,’ he said instead. ‘Help with my lessons. Since I’m down an arm,’ Harry added, pointedly jerking his chin towards his shoulder. ‘Then if I do a Hagrid and get someone maimed I can just blame it on you.’

 

It was Malfoy’s turn to open his mouth wordlessly then, his eyes searching Harry’s for something. Finally, he nodded. ‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘Merlin knows the students could do with a competent adult.’

 

Harry laughed.


	11. Push

‘Your robes are too small,’ Malfoy griped at him over his shoulder, as he yanked at black cloth bunching oddly across his shoulders.

 

Harry snorted, running his hand quickly through his hair as he looked in the mirror above the mantelpiece. He frowned, licked his palm and then brushed at his fringe again, frustrated. No matter the degree of professionalism he might have felt he needed, his hair was always determined to take a different path. Many different paths.

Through the reflection in the mirror he saw Malfoy’s disgusted expression as he turned to face him. ‘We can get more next weekend, if you’re going to be so prissy about it,’ he offered, giving up and adjusting his tie.

 

‘It’s not prissy to want to look good,’ Malfoy retorted, huffing.

 

‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Harry replied, smiling.

 

‘Well, that explains a lot about you,’ Malfoy sneered, flicking his wand at Harry’s hair in a threat for the third time since they’d woken that morning. Harry resisted the childish urge to stick his tongue out at him like a first year.

 

‘I’ll break your wand,’ Harry offered conversationally, buttoning his waistcoat with a deliberate, slow movement, one button then the other until the last popped into place.

 

‘It’s almost worth it,’ Malfoy replied, pensive. Harry narrowed his eyes at him.

 

‘I’ll hex your hair.’

 

‘Not worth it,’ Malfoy conceded.

 

‘See? Prissy.’

 

‘All these books, and not one of them a dictionary,’ Malfoy mused, adjusting his tie.

 

‘We’re going to miss breakfast,’ Harry finished patting down his robes, and turned to look at him. Malfoy was right; Harry’s robes were just slightly too small, and pinched Malfoy around the shoulders, giving him a nervous look like he couldn’t relax, like he wanted to run away. Or that could not be the robes.

 

‘Are you sure about this?’

 

Probably not the robes.

 

‘McGonagall said it was a good idea,’ Harry reminded him. ‘I think that means you have to do it, now.’

 

‘Indeed,’ Malfoy sighed, face tight. ‘What are you planning on saying, to a hall full of students who’ve known me as a garden decoration for months?’

 

‘I was going to let the Headmistress handle it.’ Harry shrugged at him. The students at Hogwarts had been though a lot, so much, before now, and maybe he was being selfish in that at least for once, but he didn’t want to be the one inflicting it on them. He’d gotten used to the quiet mornings and the respectful – sometimes cheeky – exchanges with kids not that much younger than him, over lectures about boggarts and hexes and things best avoided in dark forests, like he was only working from book-sourced knowledge, and not experience.

 

He didn’t want to stand up in that hall and do everything but announce ‘Hi, I’m that weird Potter kid, and this is what I’ve fucked up recently’.

 

If he kept sleeping, Malfoy kept being real. Maybe now he could be normal.

 

It’s just an arm, Harry.

 

You can get used to it. You can be normal.

 

Harry shook his head a little. ‘She’ll probably be subtle about it,’ he added.

 

Malfoy studied him, hands held in pockets, his back tilted in a way Harry could tell was carefully faked nonchalance. ‘Unbelievable.’

 

Harry gave him another shrug, smiling a little at the way Malfoy huffed at him in frustration. ‘Breakfast?’

 

 

* * *

 

 

As they walked through the corridors to the great hall, Harry thought about the shower he’d forced himself to have, earlier that morning. How the fabric of his t shirt had tugged at his shoulder when he’d undressed, after a night of carefully turning from his back to his right side and back again. How he’d swallowed hard at the twinges of pain as the water hit him, and yet how he’d refused to look down, look left.

 

How hard it was to wash his hair with one hand, to pull his trousers off and on again.

 

How all the bottles on the edge of his bath had been left open, easier for him to use.

 

How Malfoy had wordlessly moved to roll up his sleeve for him, when he’d finally walked out into his living room, and pinned it in place with care before helping him slide on his waistcoat, tie his tie.

 

Harry’s throat had begun to close a little then, in tiredness or sadness or loss he didn’t really know. Malfoy told him, voice steady, that at least now his ties would be done right. Harry had laughed, and his throat had cleared.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The hall did go quiet, not long after they walked in, side by side.

 

At the teacher’s table, Minerva gave them a nod, a job already done. Malfoy’s posture relaxed just slightly, enough that Harry’s also did in sympathy, but it was difficult to ignore the whispers from each of the benches as they made their way up the room together to sit.

 

‘Mr Malfoy,’ Minerva said calmly, as Malfoy eased into a seat at the table and Harry thudded down next to him. ‘I was pleased to hear what Professor Potter suggested, about approaching his work – given the circumstances.’

 

Harry looked down at his plate, bordered with a knife and fork, and hummed. He picked up the fork in his right hand, tapped it thoughtfully on the plate as he considered the platters full of food. Large pieces of bacon, fried eggs, unbuttered toast, jam and marmalade.

 

‘Maybe I need more help than I’d thought,’ Harry offered, charitably. Minerva gave him a small smile, her face kind.

 

‘I believe we will find a solution before long,’ she said. One small wave of her wand, and the bacon and eggs on the platters nearest to Harry lifted, giving a jaunty, floaty dance in the air. He watched as they divided into smaller pieces, part by part, until they settled down to the silver once more. Harry grinned at her. ‘A conversation with Professor Flitwick might prove valuable.’

 

‘Right,’ he answered, resolute. He could do that. He’d been to Ron’s home more times than he could count, and he’d seen Molly use charms to wash pans and bake bread like she had ten invisible arms. He wasn’t terrible at charms, and he had time enough to practice. He could adapt.

 

‘Here,’ Malfoy murmured, and buttered two slices of thick toast, sliding them onto his plate. Harry looked up to thank him, but noticed his eyes where elsewhere – looking down at the students. Harry followed the gaze, and saw many of them looking back; nudging each other, whispering, some glaring. Many glaring.

 

Harry reached across with his singular hand, touched Malfoy’s wrist lightly though his shirt cuff. Malfoy started a little, but when he turned his head the look Harry got was tired. ‘I’m fine.’

 

‘Don’t think about it.’ Harry poured himself some apple juice. ‘They’ll get used to it.’

 

‘Doubt it,’ Malfoy grumbled into his eggs.

 

‘They will indeed,’ Minerva interjected, making them both start a little. ‘It will become another part of life at Hogwarts, just as many things have.’

 

‘My first class, I couldn’t get a word in because they were all so excited,’ Harry admitted, embarrassed. ‘This Friday I snuck up on a couple of Slytherins complaining about one of my essays. ‘Ugh, Professor Potter is sooooo annoying,’’ he mimicked, smiling to himself.

 

‘Were they wrong?’ Malfoy smirked.

 

‘No,’ Harry laughed at him. ‘It was a very boring essay.’

 

‘Perfect,’ Malfoy said, and Harry raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll make things more interesting, and soon they’ll like me more than you.’

 

‘That’s the spirit,’ Professor Sprout cheered, from further down the table. Malfoy’s fair skin flushed slightly with embarrassment, and Harry slapped him on the shoulder.

 

* * *

 

 

They reached Harry’s classroom early, at twenty to nine, just a little bit too soon in the morning for even the most eager of his sixth years to be waiting in the corridor outside. As they walked in Harry drew the blinds up on the long row of windows with a pleased flick of his wand, happy to be able to do something so easily without worrying about how many hands it needed.

 

‘We’re doing non-verbal spells, for NEWT practice,’ he told Malfoy as he pulled down at a number of high up panels across the inside wall of the classroom, revealing padded mats that unfurled across the length of it, and again at the far end. He walked over to the windows, and probed the reflecting charm he’d put there with his wand – didn’t want anyone to fall out of the North tower. ‘I want to start them working on the banishing charm. Get things moving,’ he added, smiling.

 

‘Do you really think you’ll need those?’ Malfoy raised one pale eyebrow, poking at the wall. ‘They’re barely going to be able to ruin each other’s hairdos.’

 

‘Focused on hair today, aren’t you,’ Harry rolled his eyes at him. ‘The padding’s not for them, anyway.’

 

‘Oh?’ Malfoy turned, and gave him a knowing look, eyes narrow.

 

‘Not much point in having a helper, if you don’t use them to demonstrate,’ Harry smirked back.

 

Malfoy opened his mouth to retort when he was interrupted by the increasing noise of shuffling, as Harry’s Monday morning class dragged themselves unenthusiastically through the doorway. Harry gestured for Malfoy to join him up by his desk, and tried to nonchalantly arrange his robes so he was more confident that they were covering up his left side. Some of the students nudged at each other as they came in, less subtle than they thought they were being when they hissed at each other about _Malfoy_ and _he’s here_ and the ever obligatory _Death Eater_. Harry saw Malfoy swallow, and sympathised. Being a Professor felt a lot more like pretending the closer the class was to him in age, and a lot more intimidating. He tilted to his right, nudging his shoulder ever so slightly against Malfoy’s own, hoping it communicated at least some feeling of support, before clearing his throat.

 

‘Don’t bother sitting down,’ he told them. ‘Actually, do me a favour and move the desks to the back of the room.’

 

The class – small, at eight strong, since a good few of the students of all ages hadn’t returned that year – tittered excitedly amongst each other. Some of the more enterprising ones - Ravenclaws, because it was always Ravenclaws – levitated their desks carefully to the far corners of the space. Some just picked up their chairs and tables, laughing among themselves. Harry took a quick look to his side, to see Malfoy giving him a disdainful look and he could almost hear the voice in his head -  _Physical labour? Do they realise they're wizards?_ \- and he tried not to smile, shrugging.

 

‘Okay, so – today we’re going to start on our non-verbal work. Can anyone tell me when a non-verbal spell might be useful?’

 

One hand shot up, pin straight. Harry smiled to himself, not for the first time. Hermione would be proud. ‘Yes, Ms Delaney.’

 

‘In a duel, the other person won’t know what spell you’re about to cast.’

 

‘Exactly. Anyone know what the disadvantage of non-verbal magic is?’

 

The same hand, which Harry was fairly sure hadn’t actually gone down any more than a couple of inches, flapped around again, urgent. Harry bit the inside of his lip, all professionalism. Beside him, Malfoy snorted quietly.

 

‘Anyone besides Ms Delaney?’ Harry asked, and cringed internally for becoming every teacher who’d ever had Hermione in a classroom.

 

A pregnant silence, in which Hedra Delaney’s arm resolutely didn’t move. Harry held it, determined to make them wait it out until someone sacrificed themselves on the altar of pure awkwardness, his tried and tested method to feel like he wasn’t just having a friendly chat with one student while the rest took naps at their desks. Another Ravenclaw arm began to rise. Fair enough, thought Harry. ‘Yes, Mr Trellen?’

 

‘When cast non-verbally, a number of spells are weaker.’

 

‘Thank you, Mr Trellen,’ Harry answered, smiling. ‘Five points each to Ravenclaw. So,’ he added, reaching to touch the handle of his wand, strapped to his thigh. ‘The first spell we’re going to try is a good one for duelling.’ He withdrew his wand, and pointed it at an ink well at the edge of his desk. ‘ _Depulso_!’ One short wand sweep, and the ink well flew away from him, to shatter on the wall, splattering red ink in a small explosion. Harry silently gave himself five points for drama.

 

The class shuffled on their feet, unimpressed.

 

‘Yeah, I know. Did it in fourth year, boring. Okay, move out the way.’ Harry rolled his good shoulder, smiling. He walked towards the group, making a gesture for them to split in the middle. ‘Down the sides, cheers.’ When Harry made it to far enough down the room, he turned to look at Malfoy, who had his arms folded across his chest, considering. ‘Alright. Professor Malfoy and I are going to have a duel.’

 

Malfoy’s eyebrow shot up, then, and the students began tittering louder than before.

 

‘We’ll start with a few jinxes. When Professor Malfoy feels like he has the advantage, he’s going to non-verbally cast _Depulso_. If he’s any good, I won’t see it coming,’ Harry added, shooting Malfoy a smirk, who returned it with a spin of his wand between his fingers.

 

They both bowed, and then waited.

 

Harry stood side on, hand loose on his wand, considering. Malfoy shrugged, assuming the same stance, jaw tilted back and eyes on Harry, almost half lidded, smug.

 

He wouldn’t be smug for long, Harry thought. ‘ _Locomotor wibbly_ ,’ he shot out lazily, and Malfoy deflected it easily with a jerk of his arm. A couple of students began whispering to each other, before being loudly shhhhed by a number of the class.

Malfoy started moving, eyes locked on Harry’s. ‘ _Furnunculus_ ,’ he drawled, and a couple of girls giggled as Harry swiped it away.

The next jinx Malfoy sent him was non-verbal, but Harry recognised a stinging jinx in the flash of red light at his wand tip before it came full formed towards him, and dodged it, skidding a couple of feet and eliciting an impressed ‘ooh’ from their spectators. Malfoy clicked his tongue, unperturbed, and send a quick succession of flashes Harry’s way, which Harry absorbed with two quick shields and a short spin sideways, before returning his own fire. Malfoy batted each attempt away like they were annoying flies, standing to face Harry head on, cocky. Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

 They both stood still for a moment, considering. A trade back and forth for a few minutes, jinxes hitting shields, pausing, moving, jinxing again.

Two strong short bursts of _Flipendo_ distracted Malfoy enough that Harry was able to sneak through an impediment jinx, catching him off guard. The jinx took effect, forcing him to throw up a _Protego_ shield as he worked to un-jinx the leg Harry had hit, sluggish. Harry pressed forward, then, pushing at the shield as Malfoy struggled to maintain it, distracted.  A barrage of stinging jinxes broke down the silvery white of the spell, and Harry drew his wand back again, ready to break through –

 And then Malfoy flashed a grin at him, and his forceful yet unheard _Depulso_ threw Harry so strongly backwards that he slid most of the way towards the far wall on his arse, until his momentum was halted by a thudding collision between the middle of his back and his carefully padded wall.

 

There was a shocked silence in the classroom as Harry sat there for a second, laughing to himself. Malfoy walked over to him, and offered a hand. Once Harry was pulled to his feet, he slapped Malfoy solidly on the shoulder, grinning.

 

‘And that’s why non-verbal magic is useful,’ Harry added, still beaming. Malfoy rolled his eyes.

 

‘That was so cool,’ whispered one of the students.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Another year, another epidemic of constipation,’ Malfoy murmured to him, as they watched the class work in pairs from sitting on the edge of Harry’s desk. Each student's face was painfully concentrated, as they tried to bat at each other with banishing charms without saying a word.

 

‘They’ll get it,’ Harry answered back, wrinkling his nose a little as he watched one student attempt to overcompensate with a dramatic wand swish and almost take out another’s eye in the effort.

 

‘Eventually,’ Malfoy agreed. ‘In a decade or two.’

 

‘They’re a good class,’ Harry shot at him, defensive. I’m not a bad teacher, he added in his head. At least, he didn’t think so. He’d taken a leaf out of Remus’ book, and not underestimated what they might be capable of, and by the third week of term he’d already had two students will fully formed patronuses. And that was on almost no sleep, maybe one meal a day, and nightly visits to the grounds for hours in the cold.

 

As if on cue, Matthew Trellen skidded across the floor past them, struggling for purchase on smooth stonework. ‘See,’ Harry added.

 

Malfoy snorted, and flicked up a cushioning charm as another student tripped backwards to the ground. ‘Alright,’ he conceded. ‘They’re not terrible.’

 

‘Thank you for helping,’ Harry said, rolling his wand between his fingers.

 

‘Potter, any time you’d like me to jinx you, just ask.’

 

‘Do you think they’ve noticed?’ Harry shrugged with the shoulder closest to Malfoy, the shoulder that was now just a shoulder and not much else.

 

‘No,’ Malfoy answered, frowning. ‘No future Aurors in here.’ Harry bit back a smile, and tried to look offended.

 

‘I’ll need to mention it, at some point.’

 

‘Don’t,’ Malfoy said, as he sent out another charm. ‘Wait until you have your gold arm, and act like nothing’s changed. Or give 50 points to whichever of these idiots actually notices,’ he suggested with a sardonic look. Harry tried to give him an admonishing look, feeling protective of his idiots.

 

‘So I’m definitely getting that arm, then.’

 

‘Don’t get me wrong, Potter. Entirely because of how fucking ridiculous it will look.’

 

‘Course,’ Harry sniffed. ‘Couldn’t be because you feel sorry for me.’

 

‘I don’t,’ Malfoy tipped his head at him. ‘It’s definitely the making you look stupid thing.’

 

 

* * *

 


	12. Water

‘Okay, so, since boggarts really prefer closed off, small spaces, you’re more likely to find them –‘ Harry trailed off, mid-sentence, when half of his final class for the day, third years, started to whisper and giggle among themselves while his back was turned to gesture at his blackboard.

He looked back, nervously patting down his robes in what he hoped was a surreptitious fashion. Shit, if they’d decided to start pranking him by hexing his hair stupid colours or something he was completely buggered, because one thing he had no idea how to deal with was an uprising of rebellious thirteen year olds, since technically he was pretty sure he wasn’t actually allowed to hex any of them.

One of the kids in his front row sniggered, but at least he was polite enough to do it into his hand like a cough. Harry’s hand reached nervously to his hair. ‘What.’

 

That was when Harry was treated to the most obnoxious pantomime snore he’d ever heard.

 

Which immediately had the whole class in stitches.

 

Harry twisted to look beside him, unimpressed. Malfoy was tipped back in Harry’s desk chair, perfectly pristine leather brogues crossed together up on his desk, probably scuffing the crap out of his pile of marking. Malfoy had even gone to the effort of putting one of his textbooks open over his face, and Harry knew he was inclined to drama but that was just taking the piss. Which was obviously the point.

 

Harry sighed, looking at the carriage clock he had balanced on a pile of books at the corner of his desk. ‘Alright, fine. I’ll see you lot on Friday – but get started on your essays, they’re due back on Monday!’ He added, raising his voice over the din of scraping chairs and bags being stuffed with work. He leant over to his desk, and smacked Malfoy’s feet off.

 

Malfoy lifted a hand to slide the book off his face, a picture of innocence.

 

‘If you’re that bored, you can do my marking for me,’ Harry offered, spelling his blackboard clean.

 

‘I’m definitely not,’ Malfoy picked up the first scroll on Harry’s desk, squinting. ‘I’m not even sure I can read this.’

 

‘Practice,’ Harry dropped down to sit at an empty desk in the front row, sighing. ‘Was it that bad?’

 

Malfoy tossed the essay down to sit back again, crossing his arms. ‘No, it wasn’t terrible. But you were overrunning,’ he added, jerking his head towards the clock. ‘A couple of them at the back had started drawing on each other.’

 

Harry sighed, propping his chin onto his hand. ‘Were they at least drawing anything interesting?’

 

‘Penises,’ Malfoy shrugged. ‘Depends on your outlook on life, I think.’

 

‘I’ve never understood Minerva McGonagall more than right now.’

 

‘Any student who draws penises in her class has a death wish,’ Malfoy surmised, picking at one of Harry’s marking quills. ‘Perhaps you should try to be more terrifying.’

 

‘I’m barely getting the work right, never mind trying to scare them,’ Harry muttered.

 

Malfoy sat up, stretched a bit. Harry watched as he brushed his long fringe back from his face. ‘I think you’re just trying to trick me into flattering you.’

 

‘I’m not,’ Harry protested. ‘You don’t think I’m bad at this?’

 

‘No, I don’t,’ the look on Malfoy’s face was serious enough that Harry could believe that was the truth. Also, Malfoy was the one saying it. ‘They like you, they pay attention. Some of them might even know how to write an essay,’ he shuffled through the papers across the desk. ‘Though I haven’t seen it yet. Dare I say it, Potter, you might even be good at it.’

 

Harry flushed a little, giving a loose shrug with his injured shoulder. ‘That’s probably because you’re helping.’

 

‘Today, all I’ve really done is pass you things and pose attractively next to furniture,’ Malfoy drawled, jerking a thumb towards the chest Harry had his yet to be released boggart tucked away. ‘And embarrassed you in a duel.’

 

Harry snorted. ‘Tricked me in a duel.’

 

‘Outsmarted you in a duel,’ Malfoy winked.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry sighed, grateful, when the serving bowls nearest to him on the dinner table filled up with shepherd’s pie. He served himself a generous few spoonfuls – extra mashed potato – while he watched the school body filter in in clusters to sit at the house benches. Not one of them was looking at the teacher’s table, as far as he could tell, not even with furtive glances, and most of the students seemed to be having normal conversations without so much as whispering or gestures towards them or anything Harry would think as being any different than a normal dinner, like all of them he'd had while Malfoy was still out there outside in the cold and Harry was in the habit of picking at his meals for as long as he could stand before drifting out again.

 

‘Successful, I presume?’ The Headmistress used a quiet voice, maybe trying not to be overheard by the other Professors or Malfoy on his other side, who was reaching for the carrots. Harry jumped, anyway.

 

‘Um, yeah, I think so,’ he smiled at her. ‘Yes,’ he added, feeling more confident. ‘I don’t know if I can be as good as Remus, but the, um…’ He let his eyes flash downwards for the shortest moment he could stomach before meeting hers again. ‘It’s not getting in the way.’

 

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Minerva told him, one corner of her mouth turned upwards. Madame Hooch turned towards her to engage her in conversation, and she leaned away.

 

Harry let out a quiet gust of air.

 

* * *

 

 

 

As soon as they cleared the lion painting to Harry’s rooms, Malfoy started kicking his shoes off, sending one flying out into a dark corner and the other one impacting the book tower nearest the doorway hard enough that it gave a worrying wobble. He dropped into an armchair with a wooshing noise of heavy cushions being flattened even as Harry was still working on shrugging off his heavy robes and loosening his tie.

 

‘Make yourself at home,’ he snorted, toeing off his own shoes and throwing his robes over the coat rack, pulling harder at the tie when it refused to budge. ‘How the fuck did you tie this thing? It’s trying to garrotte me.’

 

‘You’re probably doing it wrong,’ Malfoy replied, letting himself slide slowly down in his chair. ‘You know, you’re batshit, doing that every day.’

 

‘It’s not that bad. It wasn’t great, before – you know. With the. Before. It’s better than it was.’ Harry yanked, and was rewarded with the silk knot giving and sliding free. ‘Did you not like Hogwarts? You know, the first time around.’

 

‘I imagine you mean the in-between parts, when terrible things weren’t happening.’ Harry dropped into the seat across from him with a huff, flapping his hand at him. Details. ‘I didn’t mind it. Defence wasn’t my favourite subject.’

 

‘What was?’ Harry asked, then caught himself. ‘No, never mind. Potions, course.’

 

‘Of course,’ Malfoy turned up his nose at him. ‘The superior subject.’

 

‘Of course,’ Harry mimicked, letting himself slump back. ‘I’d be buggered having only one arm, if I taught potions.’

 

‘I bet it wouldn’t even make that much of a difference, considering how bad you were at it already,’ Malfoy smirked at him. Harry gave a moment’s consideration into throwing a cushion at him.

 

‘Do you think you could teach?’

 

‘Of course, Potty. If you can do it, anyone can.’

 

The cushion hit him hard on the arm, and Harry congratulated himself on still having good aim. He ruffled at his hair, and realised it felt unpleasantly dusty from being repeatedly knocked into old padding that morning. ‘I need a shower,’ he announced.

 

‘Drawing the line at helping with that,’ Malfoy warned him, miming it. ‘There’s the line.’

 

‘I don’t need help,’ Harry flushed. He pushed himself up, starting on the waistcoat buttons. ‘Not an invalid.’

 

‘Good. For the life of me, I don’t think I could help you reproduce whatever the fuck you do to your hair.’

 

‘You really need to let the hair thing go,’ Harry told him, making his way out of the room. ‘You’ll give yourself an ulcer.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Once he’d managed to finally undo all of the buttons, Harry let his shirt slip off and fall to the floor. The first month of term had had its unpleasant effects on a lot of aspects of his life, including his appetite, and a lot of his clothes were a little bit bigger on him than when he’d first got them new over the summer, when he’d already been thinner than usual.

 

He kept his back to the mirror, easing open his belt buckle while he favoured his right side forward – so his left was further back and more confidently out of his line of sight as he looked down, keeping his head tilted. His trousers fell to his knees, and Harry perched himself on the edge of the large claw-footed bath to focus on easing them the rest of the way off his legs. Socks and underwear were gone next, the latter requiring him to wriggle awkwardly with his lone thumb hooked in the band to pull at them, and they were both dumped in a pile on the floor.

 

Harry shuffled over to the shower cubicle, waving imprecisely in the air to trigger the charm that caused hot water to flow from a small ornate shower head until it kicked in.

 

He tipped his head forward, until his forehead made contact with the cold tile of the wall, and sighed.

 

Showering was definitely going to take longer, now.

 

And dressing.

 

 And eating.

 

It’s not a massive deal. Harry shifted, and the hot water spray moved from the top of his back to the junction between his neck and his left shoulder, causing a sharp pang of pain up his side. He hit the side of his fist off the tile and bit out a moan.

His shoulder – the top of what was his arm, maybe, if it was even still there – felt hot, like something does when you’re bleeding. Harry looked down, but without his glasses he wasn’t even sure if there was blood in the water swirling around his feet or if there was just a pinkish reflection of his skin in the low lights of the bathroom. He moved to pick up a bottle of shampoo, but the space of his non-arm screamed out at him again and he almost doubled over with it, screwing his eyes closed and gritting his teeth. Harry dragged in a few breaths, his hand braced against the wet wall. Still his left side felt fiery-hot, almost sticky, and although the pain faded as he shuffled out of the spray it didn’t ease enough for him to feel able to take one full draw of air.

 

‘Fuck,’ he said to nobody. Fuck. He was going to have to look at it. If it kept up he could go to Pomfrey but the fact was that he was going to have to check it, first.

 

Harry edged out of the shower, his back kept rod-straight and his fingers trailing along the wall ready to grab at it if he needed to. When he got to the sink, he found and slipped on his glasses, easing himself down carefully to hunch over, knuckles white against his skin as he gripped hard at the rim.

 

Fast breaths sucked in between his teeth, he prepared himself in his head. Even if it was bleeding, Pomfrey would be able to do something. God, what if it was split open, if he could see bone? Harry scrunched up his face, his fringe plastered to his forehead and dripping as he squeezed the beginning of fearful tears out of his eyes.

 

He could do this.

 

One, two. Three.

 

Harry's eyes met his own in the mirror.

 

The first thing he saw was black. There was a stump – a few inches of one, where Hermione had cut, a quarter of the way down his humerus bone. But it – most of it, the edge of the cut and someway up his shoulder – was black skin, like it was burnt, like Harry had fallen into a white-hot bonfire and singed it away. The black curled up the stump, up to the curve of his armpit, like deep dark lines of smoke. Harry let out a low moan, overwhelmed, and his knees buckled underneath him, leaving him to slam down off the edge of the sink and onto the floor with a crash.

 

‘Potter?’

 

Harry’s eyes started streaming, and he curled up into himself on the cold tile, his one – only – hand pulled tight in at his stomach as he sobbed, chest quaking with it. He heard Malfoy thud at the door, call his name again, and his breath caught, sobbing abortive and leaving him starving for air, wanting to cover himself over, to disappear, ashamed, disgusted by himself.

 

‘Potter, what – ‘

 

Malfoy had the door open, nearly tripped over Harry’s work clothes as he rushed his way inside. Harry heard him pause, wished this wasn’t happening, couldn’t breathe.

 

Malfoy’s knees hit the floor behind him, and strong hands hooked under him, around his right side and low on his left, and he was bodily pulled into the other man’s lap even as he tried to moan out a no and had it catch painfully in his chest.

 

‘Potter, don’t – just breathe.’ Harry was still wet, and he was soaking through Malfoy’s clothes, and he was naked, but Malfoy’s hand curved around his bare waist to find his own and Harry gripped it like it was the only thing grounding him.

 

‘Breathe.’

 

Harry tried, shuddering in one gasp after another, until his chest wasn’t as steel-bound and he could fill his lungs more and more, but each release punctuated itself with a quiet, desperate moan than he couldn’t control, just escaped from his mouth like it was coming from someone else. Malfoy’s arms pulled him in more surely, until he was nearly sitting, leaning against him with his forehead pressed against Malfoy’s shoulder, his shirt now sodden from water, tears, Harry didn’t know.

 

Eventually he could take in air slowly, let it out, and the pain in his knees from hitting the floor and his elbow from the brief impact with the porcelain of the sink bowl had waned from a dull ache to almost nothing.

 

‘Sorry,’ Harry mumbled.

 

‘I thought you’d died,’ Malfoy told him, voice low. ‘I thought you’d smashed your head open in the shower, and I was going to get the blame for murdering you.’

 

‘No such luck,’ Harry whispered, eyes screwed shut.

 

‘What happened?’

 

Harry swallowed, thickly, wanted to shudder from the cold of water drying from his bare skin and the itchy trails of tears down his face. ‘I looked at it.’

 

‘You hadn’t –‘ He heard Malfoy swallow, his voice hoarse. ‘You hadn’t before?’

 

Harry shook his head into Malfoy’s shoulder.

 

He felt Malfoy hum, his arm shift to make sure it wasn’t touching against what was left of Harry’s, to look at it.

 

‘It’s not that bad.’

 

Harry laughed, humourlessly. ‘It’s fucking awful.’

 

‘It’s not. Potter – I know it’s not me, but – I promise you, it’s not. It’s still healing. Does it hurt?’

 

‘Yeah,’ he answered. ‘In the shower, the water on it.’

 

‘Pomfrey will have something for that, even if it’s just a pain potion, and there’s already some in my bag.’ Harry felt Malfoy’s chin rest just slightly on the top of his head. ‘We can go tomorrow. Okay?’

 

‘Okay.’

 

‘Right.’ A squeeze on his hip.

 

They sat there in silence for a while, until Harry stopped dripping on the floor and Malfoy shifted slightly, uncomfortable.

 

‘I don’t mean to rush you, but I’m getting a dead leg.’

 

Malfoy’s hand was on his bare hip. ‘I haven’t got any clothes on,’ Harry said into his shirt, mortified.

 

‘You’re fine. Thanks to those third years, I already know what a penis looks like.’

 

Harry pulled away, grabbed around for a towel to pull quickly over his crotch as he freed Malfoy from the weight of his body. ‘You were looking?’

 

Malfoy pulled himself to his feet. ‘Hard to miss,’ he deadpanned.

 

‘Get out.’


	13. Dust

Harry’s arm started stinging enough to wake him from a heavy sleep before the sun had risen beyond a pale line on the horizon, and he lay still on his side to watch the sky gradually lighten, reluctant to get up but knowing he wouldn’t be able to get close to comfortable enough to sleep again.

He eventually gave up, grunting, when his bedroom was officially lit by the grey-blue of a winter morning. Swinging his legs out of bed, he cast a tempus charm, pulling a face when he saw it was still before eight on a Tuesday - on which he had the morning off for marking and lesson planning - and he wasn’t even able to make the most of his lie in. Typical.

 

Shuffling out of his room, Harry made his way over to the fire, easing down in the armchair with its back to the window that Malfoy appeared to have claimed for himself, and feeling a bit of childish rebellion in it. He reached out, tapped the pad of one finger on the top of one of the potion bottles collected on the table to his side.

 

‘Take one, if you need it,’ Malfoy suggested, from the doorway to Harry’s spare bedroom. Harry jumped like a startled cat.

 

‘I’ll have to now you’ve given me a bloody heart attack,’ he griped, rubbing his eyes.

 

Malfoy ignored him, gliding over to pick up a bottle himself. He was dressed in a pair of Harry’s pajama trousers, and nothing else, and Harry privately noted that his skin was even paler under his shirt, which didn’t really seem all that possible. ‘That one,’ Malfoy held out to him the small round bottle of one of the pain-relieving potions that Madam Pomfrey had given him, when he’d been strong enough to leave the Infirmary.

 

Harry took it, rolling it around in his palm for a moment. He moved to open it – no. He didn’t, because the arm he tried to bring up to uncork it didn’t appear, because it was gone.

 

‘Um.’

 

Malfoy’s face tightened a little. Long fingers covered over Harry’s own, securing his grip over the glass, and another hand picked at the cork until it popped free with a small sound, and Harry’s hand was released. ‘Better?’

 

Harry answered him by downing the potion in one quick swallow, making a face. ‘Can they not make these things less disgusting?’

 

‘I think Slughorn makes them, so no, probably not,’ Malfoy peered at the label, just a scrap of white paper with the name in scratchily written purple ink. ‘I dare say you’re lucky it’s not poisonous.’

 

‘We hope,’ Harry added. ‘I thought Slughorn was supposed to be a potions master.’

 

‘That’s just what they call the idiot who takes the job, it doesn’t actually mean anything,’ Malfoy informed him, almost flinging himself down in the other armchair with a dramatic sigh, flopping to the side and hooking one knee over the arm. ‘He’s good enough, I suppose.’ Not as good as Snape, Harry didn’t hear him say, but felt like they both thought it anyway.

 

‘I haven’t got anything on until this afternoon,’ Harry offered, trying to change the subject. ‘You can go back to bed, if you like.’

 

‘I think I have some letters to write,’ Malfoy closed his eyes. ‘I’d quite like my money back. I’ve never been poor before; it’s ghastly.’

 

‘I can lend you some,’ Harry said, and shrugged when Malfoy gave an annoyed ‘ugh’ noise. ‘What? I’ve been in your house. I’m not exactly worried you can’t pay me back.’

 

‘One, maybe I can’t – the Ministry might decide to take all of it,’ Malfoy pointed out, flopping his head over to look at Harry. ‘Two, if you don’t stop trying to be a hero, I’m going to chuck myself out of the Astronomy tower. Out of sheer irritation.’

 

‘Do you not think I’d say the same thing to Ron? I’m not trying to be a hero,’ Harry protested, frowning. ‘I’m just trying to be a good friend.’

 

‘Are we friends now?’ Malfoy asked him, sat in his armchair, in his pyjama bottoms, in his living room. Harry rolled his eyes. ‘I thought I was just the damsel in distress.’

 

‘That’s obviously me,’ Harry nodded towards his shoulder. ‘You can be the dashing prince this time. I’m fed up of it.’

 

‘Potter, I’m always the dashing prince,’ Malfoy drawled, flopping his arms out until he was spread eagle, lying sideways across his chair, his hair falling back from his head across the arm of it, almost glinting gold in the early morning sunlight.

 

‘Damsel was definitely more accurate,’ Harry observed, and Malfoy took so long sourcing a cushion to chuck at him that he managed to make it into the bathroom before he heard the _whumpf_ of it hitting the door frame.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry was just finishing off a piece of toast, reading a quite frankly abysmal first year essay about gnomes that was covered in ink splashes and crossings out, when an owl rapped loudly at his living room window. Malfoy reached across from where he was working on letters at the writing desk to ease the catch open, and the bird flapped noisily into the room to land on the back of Harry’s chair, dropping a letter on his head.

 

‘Cheers, I think,’ he said, reaching across to the table to grab a piece of bacon, which the owl took aggressively from his fingers with a snap of its beak before clattering into flight again, and back out of the open window. Harry recognised Hermione’s careful cursive on the envelope, and opened it to read, popping the wax with his thumb nail and dragging it across the chair arm to unfold the parchment.

 

‘’Mione says to leave my Saturday clear, after seeing Teddy,’ he informed Malfoy. ‘I was thinking about going to Ron’s, but…’ Ron didn’t know about his arm yet. Or Malfoy, even.

 

‘Does she say why?’ Malfoy asked quietly, distracted, pouring wax onto his own letters.

 

‘Nope,’ Harry replied, emphasising the pop with his lips and letting himself slide down a little in his seat.

 

‘A bad sign?’

 

‘Probably,’ Harry sighed. ‘I guess I’ll find out. Are you – will you come with me, to see Teddy?’ He stood up and walked over to the desk to stuff Hermione’s letter into a wodge of papers that he used as a physical ‘to do’ list.

 

Malfoy looked up at him, twisting his mouth. ‘Aunt Andromeda isn’t likely to welcome it. You don’t know the family history –‘

 

‘I know she was disowned, before we were born,’ Harry offered, leaning his hip against the desk. ‘I’m guessing you’ve never met her.’

 

‘No,’ Malfoy admitted, looking out of the window. Harry watched him roll the stem of a quill between his fingers nervously. ‘My mother talked about her, but it wasn’t positive. Though I think – I think she missed her, in a way.’

 

‘Since Tonks – Nymphadora, your cousin? Since her and Remus died, she’s not really got anyone left ‘cept Teddy,’ Harry said, subdued. ‘I won’t push you or anything. I just thought it’d be a nice thing, since –‘

 

‘Since I haven’t really got anyone left, either,’ Malfoy finished for him with a wry smile that had an unpleasant emptiness behind it, making Harry’s chest hurt a little.

 

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Harry said, slumping. ‘Sorry.’

 

‘You didn’t kill my parents, Potter,’ Malfoy said to the window, tapping the nib of the quill just slightly too hard against the wood of the table. ‘I just –‘ he looked down, sighing. ‘I don’t know if I want to find out. If she hates me.’

 

‘I’ll write to her.’ Harry leant against the window with his back, feeling the fresh cold of the glass against his shoulder and crossing his arm over his stomach to rub a bit of warmth into the skin through his thin t shirt. ‘I’ll just ask whether it’s alright to bring you.’

 

Malfoy nodded, face still sharper than usual. ‘Alright.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry ruffled through the papers on his classroom desk, waiting for Malfoy to return from the Owlery before the start of his afternoon lesson with the small class of seventh years that had returned for that year.

 

Their lesson, maybe. Since Harry had now officially dubbed him ‘Professor Malfoy’, and yesterday Malfoy had managed to answer a question about ghosts from a first year with better knowledge and eloquence than Harry thought he himself would ever be capable of.

 

Their lesson, at least for a while, until the Ministry returned Malfoy’s family funds to him, and he’d be out of the main doors to the school faster than Harry could say ‘flobberworm’.

 

Harry sighed, already regretting the plan he’d made for the lesson ahead. First he’d agreed with Hermione when she’d suggested he spend time with the older students, working more in depth on the worst curses they’d dealt with during the war. He’d thought about Umbridge’s joke of a curriculum and agreed with her.

 

If Harry could rub the back of his left hand, he would. One upside. His scar was gone. ‘I must not tell lies’, and the ‘lie’ he’d been telling was about that spell and Voldemort returning to his body, to full power. There was something poetic about that, if he thought about it hard enough, not that he particularly wanted to.

 

Hermione had told him, resolute, that the best weapon against things like that, and the unforgivables, was to understand them. Now, though, he was looking at a textbook propped open on a chapter about the Imperius curse, and regretting it. Malfoy wasn’t a stranger to _imperio_. Neither was Harry, when it came down to it.

 

Maybe he shouldn’t –

 

‘Try not to think too hard, Potty. You’ll give yourself a headache.’

 

Harry jumped again, for the second time today. Instead of replying he just held his hand dramatically over his heart, glaring, and Malfoy laughed. ‘I’m not sure about this lesson plan,’ Harry told him, checking his clock – they had twenty minutes until the lunch break ended. Malfoy leant over to peer at his papers, and winced a little when he read the chapter title of the book. ‘We can do something – ‘

 

‘You’re not sure because you’re worried it’ll upset them?’ Malfoy asked, eyebrow raised.

 

‘No, more like – not sure, because it might upset us?’ Harry shrugged, defeated. ‘I don’t know if we’re up to it, to be honest.’

 

‘Well, don’t change anything on my account,’ Malfoy frowned. ‘I’m not the wilting flower you may believe I am.’

 

Harry slumped back at his desk at focussed his eyes out of the window, at the slow roll of fog that was advancing over the forest and towards the castle. ‘Maybe it’s not you I’m thinking about,’ he admitted. ‘After yesterday…’

 

‘You’re still in pain?’ Malfoy’s face was pinched then, but ever so slightly in worry rather than offence; like he was trying to hide it but it was still leaking through. ‘There’s a couple of bottles in your bag, if you need them.’

 

‘I’m not,’ Harry protested, and gave a gallant attempt at rolling his injured shoulder in experimentation. ‘I’m just – I don’t know,’ he sighed, defeated.

 

Malfoy perched on the corner of his desk, and crossed his arms. ‘The problem with Defence against the Dark Arts, Potter, is that all of it is unpleasant.’

 

Harry sighed, frustrated at not being able to make himself understood, but Malfoy met his eyes with a kind look in his own. ‘It’s a long year,’ Malfoy added. ‘There’s time to cover the unforgivables still. Make them practice something today, like that bloody disarming charm you’re so fond of.’

 

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Harry smiled, looking down at his hand on his lap. ‘I reckon you’re just after duelling me again.’

 

‘Obviously,’ Malfoy smirked, stretching out his back. He looked at Harry, considering, long enough that Harry began to itch a little bit under the scrutiny.

 

‘Have I got something on my face?’ He joked.

 

Malfoy snorted, standing up to stretch properly, languidly like a cat waking from a nap. He padded around Harry’s desk, too nonchalant, and Harry watched him move with a suspicious look until Malfoy came up on his right side, to sit down again on the edge of the desk close to Harry’s hand.

 

Malfoy’s own hand came up, and rested lightly on Harry’s shoulder. ‘Tell me, if you’re in pain.’

 

Harry felt his eyes widen a little bit, spooked. ‘Um – yeah. I will.’

 

One small squeeze, and he was let go. ‘Good.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Duelling Malfoy was fun enough that Harry was tempted to change all of his lesson plans, even though it would mean they’d never actually get any work done, he thought to himself after his second time crashing into the classroom’s ancient padding.

 

Malfoy always seemed to offer something that impressed the students, even if it was just a flourish on what simple spell or technique that Harry was trying to teach. Two minutes into a group practice of _Expelliarmus_ and _Protego_ and he’d already had all of the seventh year class laughing by blocking Harry’s movement with a shield as a barrier, left, then right, then behind, and then disarming him with a quick flick as Harry turned back to good-naturedly criticise him for showing off.

 

Harry pulled himself with a bit of difficulty, tucking his wand into his trousers and grabbing on to the wall padding for leverage. Missing an arm made a lot of things more difficult, but he’d been very glad to find that duelling and most wand work associated with teaching hadn’t been among them.

A bit of tasteful drapery of his robes, and his classes seemed to still be yet to notice that instead of his left arm there was just a neatly pinned roll of his purple shirt sleeve.

 

Malfoy started moving through the class with an arm out, presumably to help him up. Harry huffed and shook his head, managing eventually to get back up straight without too much conspicuous difficulty.

 

 He patted down his robes with his wand hand, no worse for wear but significantly dustier than he’d started, and grabbed his wand to raise it high in the air in the middle of the class of still duelling students.

 

‘Alright, everyone, let’s – ‘ Harry began, before being slammed bodily by one of his class members, and hitting the hard floor with a thud.

 

The din of the classroom quickly went to quietness with a few gasps and a couple of exclamations of ‘Professor Potter!’ and a ‘Harry!’ from a Gryffindor he’d been friends with just last year. Harry groaned, the air knocked out his lungs and his back in sharp pain from its collision with the unforgiving stone tiling.

 

Barely a second passed before Malfoy was at his side, down on his knees, and Harry flushed with embarrassment and a bit of pain as he was pulled up to sit yet again by strong hands on his shoulder and back.

 

‘I’m fine,’ he wheezed out, wincing.

 

‘Your arm?’ Malfoy murmured in his ear, and Harry realised he was protecting Harry’s privacy, keeping quiet to keep it secret.

 

‘Fine,’ Harry nodded; he’d been hit in the chest, and landed on his back. His arm wasn’t hurting any more than the creeping ache from exercise. ‘Didn’t hit it.’

 

Harry heard Malfoy sigh from relief in his ear, and the other man’s grip tighten around his arm and his hip to help him back to standing. Harry smiled at him, brushing himself off again.

 

‘That was a lot more dramatic than it needed to be,’ Harry said wryly, and the classroom laughed.

 

* * *

 


	14. Wind

 

‘I hate it when the house elves get carried away with sausages,’ Malfoy grumbled, flopping himself down into his claimed armchair with an elegance Harry wouldn’t have believed was possible if he’d not seen it. Must be the breeding.

 

‘There was hotpot too,’ Harry told him, spelling his laces untied and easing off his shoes by the door.

 

‘Can’t stand it,’ Malfoy made a face at him from across the room. ‘Stewed vegetables. Might as well eat paste.’

 

‘Dunno then,’ Harry shrugged, robes on the hook and working at his tie. ‘When there’s nothing I feel like, I usually just eat treacle tart until Hermione takes my plate away.’

 

‘And they let you be a teacher,’ Malfoy raised a judgemental eyebrow. Harry just shrugged again – couldn’t really argue with that, he was always a bit stunned about it himself – and sat down heavily in his chair with a sigh. ‘You’re going to regret setting that many essays, you know.’

 

‘I made the plans when I assumed I’d be getting less sleep,’ Harry admitted, trying and failing to clean his glasses on the corner of his undone waistcoat.

 

He’d made most of his plans when he was imagining how Malfoy would fit into them; just not Malfoy, the flesh and blood man with bright hair that was sitting across from him in his living room. A Malfoy that he’d be going to see every night, when the castle was quiet and Harry couldn’t fight off the guilt any longer. One he’d spill blood on and read essays, newspapers, books to, one he’d struggle to tear himself away from and go back to again, over and over.

 

And now Malfoy was there and real, and Harry hadn’t ever really let himself imagine he’d be settling down comfortably at night after a long dinner and a good day, and wanting more free time to talk with him inside by a fireplace and not draping blankets over a marble effigy of him in the snow.

 

‘Potter,’ Malfoy interrupted his thoughts, and Harry looked up from his lap.

 

‘Yeah?’

 

Malfoy’s mouth opened, and he paused a second, his face changing from thoughtful to a small frown. He looked away, and spoke to the fire instead of Harry. ‘You should be more careful.’

 

Harry huffed, unimpressed. ‘Is that you caring about me, or just being rude?’

 

 Harry watched Malfoy’s back tense. ‘You have no idea, how strange this still is.’ From the tightening of his jaw, Harry knew he wasn’t talking about no longer being a statue.

 

‘I think I do,’ he replied, defiantly. ‘I haven’t just forgotten everything, you know.’

 

‘Then why – ‘ Malfoy huffed, turning to look at him. ‘Why are you so determined, to keep helping me? Offering me money, letting me stay here – ‘

 

‘We weren’t friends,’ Harry agreed, and somehow the way Malfoy was speaking – the way it seemed like he was trying to hide behind something, like if he kept his face just hard enough that Harry wouldn’t know how uncomfortable he was – made Harry feel more assured, determined. ‘I’m not trying to pretend that we were.’

 

‘It seems like you are,’ Malfoy said then, almost sneering, and Harry had to close his eyes for a second, refuse to rise to it.

 

‘What do you want me to do?’ Harry’s voice was raised, and the grip he’d had on the seam of a cushion had tightened. ‘We’ve gone over it too many times already. Is it stupid for me to want all of it – the war, everything – to just be over now?’ The fabric of the cushion started to push at his fingertips, a dull pain. ‘If I have to act like we’re in sixth year still, Malfoy, I’m going to go ‘round the fucking bend,’ he added, with a humourless laugh.

 

‘You really think I’m a better person now?’ Malfoy sneered, bitter. ‘I’m still just a Death Eater, with a few more dead friends.’

 

‘Malfoy, don’t -‘ Harry let out a long breath. ‘If we don’t move on from it, we’ll get stuck there. I don’t want it to be who I am,’ he said, to the fire. ‘I don’t want what he made me to be who I am anymore. Do you?’

 

‘No,’ Malfoy said, and Harry turned back to him, saw the expression on his face as if he’d surprised himself. ‘I don’t. But.’ Malfoy’s eyes cut into his, bright. Scared. ‘What if I can’t?’

 

‘You’ve lived with me for two days, and I’m not dead,’ Harry offered. ‘I even let you point a wand at me a load of times.’

 

‘That’s because you’re an idiot,’ Malfoy told him, then caught himself. ‘If I get – if I have money again, and I go, do whatever. The world isn’t going to see it that way, like you do.’

 

‘Everyone here does,’ Harry gestured with his hand, to the room, the castle. ‘We can start from there.’

 

‘The students do because you do, and they trust you,’ Malfoy said. ‘I can’t drag you everywhere I go.’

 

‘Who says you can’t?’ Harry said, and smiled when Malfoy shot a look at him. ‘I’ll even wear a sign, if you like.’

 

‘Saying what, exactly?’

 

Harry shrugged. ‘Malfoy is okay, signed Harry Potter.’

 

Malfoy rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t even get a first name.’

 

‘That’s because it’s stupid,’ Harry jibed, and he had to laugh when Malfoy made a pantomime of reaching for his wand in his pocket. ‘Alright. _Draco_ Malfoy is okay, I suppose, signed Harry Potter.’

 

‘I’ll need a copy in writing, too.’ Malfoy sighed. ‘And to think, when I was stuck in that spell I thought you were more than a bit insane. I had no idea.’

 

‘You’re welcome, Malfoy,’ Harry offered, stretching, his back twingeing in a sharp pain that cut across from his right hip up to the inside of his left shoulder.

 

Malfoy hummed, watching the flames. ‘Draco.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘It’s a very dignified name,’ Malfoy informed him. ‘Call me by it.’

 

‘Alright, fine,’ Harry said, taken aback. He thought about it for a moment. ‘Alright. Draco. And I’m Harry, I guess.’

 

‘I know, Potter,’ Malfoy told him, as if he were talking to a particularly stupid child.

 

‘Call me Harry,’ Harry clarified with a sharp look. ‘Or, you know, Professor Potter,’ he added with a grin.

 

‘I’d rather die,’ Malfoy told him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

When Harry woke early the next morning he was glad to find it wasn’t from the ache of his shoulder, and although the sun had barely risen he felt well rested and happy.

 

He got up, stretching, and scratched his bare stomach as he looked out of the window of his bedroom, ever so slightly opaque at the edges of small panes from the frost of the oncoming winter mornings. He’d showered again last night, slightly too bothered by the gritty feeling of dust on his hair and skin to wait until the morning, and with bit of care under the water spray he’d come out unscathed, no pain beyond the familiar tight edge of ache across the muscles of his shoulder and back. When he’d walked out of the bathroom and discovered Malfoy lurking near the door, listening, on stand-by, he’d just grinned and shrugged.

 

He was healing. Maybe his arm didn’t look like it – it was still black, and Harry still felt a bit sick to his stomach looking in the mirror, like there was a hot rock sitting in the middle of his guts – but it wasn’t hurting. He wasn’t on the floor. Feeling defiant, he’d even decided to sleep without a t shirt.

 

Harry made his way quietly into his living room, choosing to drop down into the desk chair of the writing desk near the window than by his now customary seat by the fireplace. He rested his one hand against the edge of the wood, pensive.

 

He had letters he knew he should write. He’d written to Andromeda, to Hermione, but that wasn’t everyone.

 

Hermione had asked him, when he’d first come back from Malfoy Manor, first found that book, how to save Malfoy – Draco. She’d said, ‘how are we going to tell Ron?’ and Harry had felt pain from it like the words had bruised his heart. He’d told her he’d manage it; Ron might stop him so not yet, not until they were done. But he’d manage it, and as he said it he knew, and she knew, that he was right, Ron wouldn’t let him, so he couldn’t tell him. And he’d not understand it. Maybe he wouldn’t forgive him the lie, now that it was done. Maybe he wouldn’t forgive him for doing it to himself, either.

 

Maybe Harry should write, ease into it. He couldn’t visit Saturday and maybe he didn’t want to – he didn’t know if he could do that to Molly, no forewarning, unannounced, and Ron was never not at home, the last few months. But it’d already been so long for Harry to leave something so important unspoken to someone so important.

 

He didn’t know how. How do you write that letter?

 

He dropped the quill he’d picked up with a soundless fluttering of the black feather back to rest on top of a pile of school work.

 

He needed to try. But maybe not yet. He’d think on it.

 

‘Morning,’ Harry heard, and twisted in his seat to see Malfoy – Draco, now – emerge from his bedroom.

 

Harry stood up, abandoning his desk to shuffle over and sit in his armchair, pulling down a blanket to cover over his exposed shoulder, self-conscious.

 

Draco paused on the way to his own chair, sunlight breaking over the milky colour of his torso. ‘Don’t do that.’

 

‘What?’ Harry asked flatly, uncomfortable.

 

‘Either cover it, or don’t. Don’t cover it because of me.’

 

‘I’ll put you off your breakfast,’ Harry shifted in his seat, avoiding his gaze. Draco huffed. He walked over to Harry, and pulled carefully at the blanket, lifting it off while trying not to catch the fabric on raw skin, and the part that dragged over Harry’s bare stomach made him shiver.

 

‘I’ve told you. It’s not bad.’

 

‘It is,’ Harry insisted, crossing his arm across his chest and feeling vulnerable now, exposed, as Draco stood over him. ‘It’s pretty disgusting.’

 

‘It’s not.’ Draco’s voice was quiet. ‘Is it hurting?’

 

‘No,’ Harry replied, with a little bit of relief. ‘It did a bit last night, but I think it’s a long day thing. But right now I’m fine.’

 

‘Good,’ Draco said, dropping into his own chair. ‘Is today a long day?’

 

‘No,’ Harry looked at his desk, remembering his timetable. ‘Second years this afternoon, and that’s it. Then the Gryffindor Quidditch team have practice, and I said I’d watch.’

 

Draco’s eyes went sharply to his arm, then, and Harry resisted squirming in his seat. ‘Are you planning on flying?’

 

Harry saw the look on his face, and slumped. ‘I hadn’t even thought about it.’

 

Draco sighed, and spelled the fire to roar into life. ‘You should be able to, if you’re careful.’

 

‘You’ll just have to be there to catch me,’ Harry told him.

 

‘Death Eater _and_ a Slytherin, at their practice session? The Gryffindors will have kittens.’

 

‘They’ll probably be more bothered about the Slytherin thing,’ Harry nodded. ‘Doesn’t matter, since you’re Professor Malfoy now.’

 

‘Approved by Professor Potter himself,’ Draco added wryly. ‘Shit.’

 

‘Told you I’d get you to say it,’ Harry laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

 

There was a small chorus of whispering as Harry loped down to the green of the repaired Quidditch pitch with Draco at his side, a striking figure of white-blond hair and pale skin at the top of Harry’s borrowed black teaching robes, as they’d expected.

 

Harry had caught himself reaching for his old team robes, automatic, when they’d returned to his rooms after the end of timetable, and taken a minute to kneel beside his trunk of school things, his hand still gripping onto a signature Weasley jumper in a moment of almost forlorn feeling.

 

Draco had swept in, uninvited and unceremonious, to sort through and insult the clothes Harry had hung up in his bare bedroom wardrobe, and the bickering that followed had snapped him out of it.

 

As they joined up to the captain of the Gryffindor team, a tall and brown skinned young woman in her sixth year that Harry knew as Penny Haltwork, he picked nervously at the fabric of his own black robe.

 

‘Professor,’ Penny greeted him with a warm smile and the slightly flushed cheeks of a face bit by the frost of winter. ‘We’re really glad you came, we’ve been having trouble with the beaters, the Slytherin team are –‘ her voice trailed off, with an awkward look to Draco, who was a step behind Harry at his elbow, watching the team lapping the pitch to come down to meet them with a calculating expression.

 

‘Playing dirty?’ Harry laughed. ‘You can say it, Professor Malfoy pretty much invented it.’

 

Draco gave him a sharp look then, but the following exaggerated smirk on his face elicited a small giggle from Penny that seemed to surprise her as much as it did Draco. Harry chuckled to himself, reaching out to pat him lightly on the arm. ‘I take it they’ve been sneaking into your practices?’

 

‘We didn’t see any,’ the young seeker, a boy in his third year called Henry Walters, added in energetically. ‘But we’ve heard that they’ve been saying how bad our bludger tactics are. Penny says they’re just trying to spook us,’ Henry added, as his face twisted in irritation.

 

‘It’s working,’ added in one of the chasers, and Draco laughed.

 

 Harry ran a hand through his hair, thinking. ‘Alright, set yourselves away,’ he told Penny. ‘We’ll have a watch and then we can talk it over. Professor Malfoy is a totally neutral party,’ he told them, with a grin. ‘But if you watch his face, I bet you’ll be able to tell a lot.’

 

Penny yelled out a few instructions, and Harry and Draco’s robes flapped violently with the force of the team of seven teenagers taking off into the air and zooming off.

 

‘Tell a lot, can you,’ Draco said flatly.

 

‘Open book,’ Harry confirmed, and jerked away towards the broom shed before the hand that lashed out could hit him on the head.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When the team touched down to meet them in the centre of the pitch, Harry and Draco had armed themselves with a pair of the less scratty looking Cleansweeps the school had for general use, and Harry’s stomach was starting to bubble a little with nervous energy.

 

‘Okay,’ he said to the team, ‘I think I agree with what Penny’s telling you – you need to open up a bit when the chasers get downfield – I know bunching up feels like you’ll get a better shot in, but you’re just making yourselves an easier target. And Walters – you need to get up higher,’ he smiled to the seeker Henry. ‘Half the time the snitch was above you, and weaving around up field is a good way to distract the beaters.’

 

‘I’m always worried I’ll fly into someone,’ Henry protested. ‘Last year, three of us broke our arms in the first match.’

 

‘Yeah, but the Slytherins weren’t playing fair,’ Penny protested, and Harry saw Draco nod in agreement out of the corner of his eye. ‘This year will be different, since we have Harry – I mean, Professor Potter, and the Headmistress.’

 

‘You’ll be fine,’ Harry agreed. ‘You can try it now in a practice match; your team will tell you how annoying you can be.’

 

Henry nodded, still unsure, and Penny slapped him on the arm. ‘You’ll fill in some of the numbers, right, Professor – um. Professors?’

 

Harry took a deep breath, caught Draco’s eyes for a second, saw the slight worry in them. ‘I don’t want you to get too reliant on having us flying,’ he joked, unsure.

 

‘We won’t,’ Penny argued, and the team joined in a murmur of agreement. ‘Pleeease?’

 

‘Alright,’ Harry laughed, rubbing his neck. ‘But there’s something I need to tell you lot about first,’ he admitted, awkward, and almost started when he felt the slightest warm pressure of Draco’s hand on his back. ‘Don’t make fun of me if I’m not much of a flyer anymore, okay?’

 

He reached for the clasp of his robes, and Draco helped him pull away the heavy wool without catching it on his shoulder or his jacket underneath, revealing the neatly folded roll of fabric where his arm should be, fixed in place by the bright silver of a pin.

 

Harry expected gasps, and maybe a few questions, or protests.

 

He didn’t expect an awkward silence, with a few of the team looking at their shuffling feet. Harry’s face twisted, feeling stumped.

 

‘They knew,’ Draco said, with an incredulous laugh.

 

‘You knew?’ Harry asked, confused. Henry and a couple of the chasers nodded, shrugging.

 

‘You weren’t talking about it,’ Penny offered, and Harry remembered he’d already had a Defence lesson her that week.

 

‘There’s loads of rumours on how it happened,’ Henry told them, conspiratorial. ‘Teweth in Ravenclaw is telling people that you had a huge duel with some Death Eaters to rescue Malf – Professor Malfoy, and one of them turned your arm into glass, and smashed it,’ he punctuated the words with a dramatic punch of his fist into his hand. ‘Libby told him he was talking crap, but Teweth says his aunt who works in the Ministry told him.’

 

Penny rolled her eyes. ‘Teweth is a big fat liar.’

 

Harry felt a bit light headed, and leant into Draco at his side, stunned. ‘You all knew, and you let me think I was being really sneaky about it.’

 

‘Talking about it would be rude,’ a tall sandy haired chaser, Eddy Brown, offered.

 

Draco started sniggering them, hand at Harry’s back for support. A laugh started building up in his chest.

 

‘Well,’ he said, still a bit shaken. ‘I guess you won’t judge me if my flying is a bit wobbly, then.’

 

‘You’ll still be better than Libby,’ Henry told him, and the chaser called Libby smacked him hard on the top of the head.

 

‘I’ll spot you,’ Draco murmured in his ear, as the Gryffindor team started kicking off to fly again and Harry straddled his Cleansweep.

 

‘You’ll need to,’ Harry told him, easing into a careful float above the grass. ‘Apparently I can’t see past my own nose.’

 

‘You and I both,’ Draco told him, chuckling, as he shot off into the sky.


	15. Gold

The first few turns around the pitch were precarious going for Harry.

 

Years of flying as the team seeker during practices had made him unknowingly reliant on both of his hands, for support through a tight grip on the far point of his broom handle, using speed and agility as his main skillset rather than worrying too much about the other players.

Now, though, there was something just slightly off in his balance, like when he first climbed out of bed in the infirmary. Like if he stopped concentrating he’d lean just ever so slightly too far to his right, and spin upside down, to the point he was overcompensating and leaning too far left instead; unnoticed until he realised he was veering away at an angle and at points dangerously close to the wooden structure of the spectator’s stands.

 

And yet despite everything, flying was still the most exhilarating feeling Harry had ever experienced. Even one arm down, slower and more ginger, and wobbly angles included, he felt almost exactly like he did in that first flying lesson when he’d soared up on an old school broom after Neville’s Remembrall, stolen by Malfoy. Like even though the world often didn’t make sense, or felt like it was against him; he had this. A feeling of total freedom.

 

Harry leaned back, letting the broom pull him into a high position to look down over the students zipping around each other in a bare-bones practice match. He watched as Henry, twenty feet away, made to copy him and ease up higher over the pitch. Harry grinned, and chanced a tight grip of his thighs around the broom to give him a quick and jerky thumbs up.

 

Malfoy – Draco, it was Draco now – was flitting about downfield, quaffle in hand, robes flapping in the wind with an audible clatter as he swept around the Gryffindor team with a quick ease and confidence.

 

 Harry smiled to himself as he saw him feint around Penny, and heard the distant sound of her annoyance.

 

Draco’s fault, really. That Harry ended up loving flying so much, and being put on the team in first year.

 

It seemed like such a long time ago now, being eleven and everything being so new. Catching his first snitch. Picking his way through the Forbidden Forest, a pinch-faced, bratty little Draco in tow.

 

Draco’s fault again, Harry hummed, smiling. Sort of.

 

Harry leant back, stretching his spine. Draco’s hair seemed to glint at him in the sunlight as he made a chance shot at the hoops downfield and missed to a triumphant last second swoop from Eddy Brown. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Henry suddenly jerk into action, swooping downfield himself, and shot forward himself on instinct, hand gripping tight enough around the broom that his fingers pinched with it.

 

Oh. Not just ridiculously beaming blond hair, then – though he’d definitely lost it now, if the snitch was still moving around in between the players, and a quick look at Henry didn’t make it clear whether the boy could still see it either, just that he was still heading in closer to the fray with a determined look on his face.

 

Harry bit his lip, pulling left as he flew to curve around as he neared the cluster, eyes squinting, determined to at least give Henry a bit of a run around before conceding defeat.

 

Henry wasn’t so careful.

 

Harry watched with widening eyes as one of the student chasers pushed upwards, forcing Draco to move with them to avoid a collision - which put him right in the path of an over-eager Henry, still barrelling in with his attention on the prize.

 

Harry barely had a moment to yell out, shooting forward on his broom, before they met each other in the air with an audible clatter of bodies and wood.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

‘Perhaps it wasn’t the Slytherin team playing dirty,’ Draco told Harry in a dry voice, wincing over Madame Pomfrey’s head as she fussed over his broken left arm, as he lay back in a large pile of crisp white pillows in his infirmary bed.

 

Harry’s face twisted in a mix of embarrassment and worry. With the robes and shirt sleeve pulled back, the end of a shattered bone was visible, pushing through the pale skin of his forearm, marred by blood and deep scrapes.

 

‘I’m really sorry, Professor Malfoy,’ the Gryffindor seeker Henry whined, from his own bed surrounded by the remainder of his team and nursing his own broken ankle. Harry rubbed his eyes with his hand.

 

‘Never mind that,’ Madame Pomfrey. ‘One spell and a potion and you’ll be right as rain, both of you.’

 

‘It’s just that I saw the snitch, and – ‘

 

‘It’s alright, Walters,’ Draco tipped his head back in his bed, to address the worried Gryffindors with a smirk on his face, but Harry’s eyes were focused on his other hand instead, pulling at the bed sheets in a pained grip. ‘I’ve still got the arm, after all.’

 

Harry tried to bite back a laugh at the horrified expressions that suddenly flashed across seven different teenage faces. ‘Come on, that’s just rude.’

 

‘Is it?’ Draco’s head turned languidly to fix him with a look. ‘I thought you were supposed to be refereeing.’

 

‘Yeah, sorry,’ Harry said, sheepish. ‘I didn’t realise Walters was going to do a bludger impression.’

 

‘Hey!’ Henry protested, indignant. ‘I didn’t mean to – ow,’ he moaned as Penny wacked him gently around the head. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ he repeated to her, defeated.

 

‘We know, Henry,’ Harry said, watching as a glow of light from Pomfrey’s wand pulled Draco’s arm slowly back into place, wincing a little in sympathy. ‘Maybe more careful next time, though.’

 

‘Maybe aim at Potter next time,’ Draco added, and Harry pretended to hit at his uninjured arm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Draco started to pick at the knot of his sling the moment they were out of the line of sight of the hospital wing doors, and the white triangle of fabric combined with his wrinkled nose in disgust reminded Harry so strongly of third year that it gave him a jarring feeling, and he almost fumbled his step.

 

‘Leave it alone,’ he told him, adjusting his own robes over his left shoulder. ‘If Pomfrey sees you’ve taken it off early I’m not going to save you.’

 

‘The whole point of magic, is so that we don’t need these stupid things,’ Draco grumbled, giving up.

 

‘She said you needed to rest it,’ Harry reminded him, as if it was necessary, or would make any difference.

 

‘I’m not planning on suddenly taking up violin,’ Draco rolled his eyes. ‘Or sword fighting. It’ll get rested.’

 

Harry shrugged. ‘I just do what she tells me so I don’t get murdered.’

 

Draco looked unimpressed. ‘I mean, what does she think I’m going to do with it?’ He rolled his shoulders, frowning. ‘It’s not even my wanking arm.’

 

Harry, who had been about to open his mouth to tell him to stop moving around so much, started choking on his own intake of air. He covered his mouth, clearing his throat, and tried to keep walking towards the Great Hall and dinner as if he hadn’t noticed the growing shark-like grin spreading across Draco’s face.

 

‘Quite well, Potter?’

 

‘I’m fine,’ Harry looked determinedly in a different direction.

 

‘Because we can go back, if you’ve been taken suddenly ill.’

 

‘Fuck off.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When they returned to Harry’s rooms, there was a brown owl sitting patiently at his desk near the ajar window, a letter lying at its feet.

 

Draco ignored it, choosing instead to flop down into his armchair with a soft exhale, sling already abandoned.

 

‘Not that worried about your money, then,’ Harry observed, slowly unbuttoning his waistcoat as he made his way over to the bird.

 

‘You’re mad if you think the Ministry replies that quickly to anything,’ Draco told him, flicking his wand at the fire and watching it burst into life. ‘Unless, of course, you’re trying to give them money, not take it back.’

 

Harry sighed, offering the owl a treat from a desk drawer and picking up the letter. Draco was right, in that it was addressed to him, in elegant, tall lettering in a black ink. Harry recognised it as the aristocratic handwriting of Tonk’s mother, Andromeda, and didn’t know whether to feel trepidations or interest.

 

He eased into his own chair, picking away the seal with his thumbnail. Manoeuvring against the arm allowed him to open and read the letter, which was short and tightly written.

 

He let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

 

_Dear Harry,_

_I had heard the news of the loss of my dear sister and her son. Of course, you are both welcome to visit as soon as you are able, and I look forward to the meeting._

_I expect you will explain more how my nephew has come to return, when next I see you._

_Please tell Draco of my sorrow at the loss of his mother._

_Yours,_

_Andromeda._

‘She says she’ll see us this weekend,’ he told Draco with a small smile. ‘Both of us.’

 

Draco looked up, then, his small frown betraying some relief.  ‘Does she say that with happiness, or just an overwhelming sense of foreboding?’

 

‘Sadness,’ Harry admitted, looking back at the letter. ‘But about your mother. She says to tell you she’s sorry.’

 

‘Yes,’ Draco sighed. ‘Me too.’

 

Harry leant back, letting the paper drop onto the table beside him. ‘So we’ve got that, and then ‘Mione. And I don’t know what’s going on there.’

 

‘That will be when I make my exit,’ Draco told the fire. ‘I’m wondering at what point the entire Weasley clan turn up at your door. To murder me, for taking your arm,’ he clarified, with an un-looking gesture back at Harry.

 

‘Given, not taken,’ Harry corrected quietly.

 

‘Semantics.’

 

Harry folded even further back into his chair, letting the back of his head thump against the rest. ‘Probably not for a while.’

 

‘So you agree they will,’ Draco said. ‘Why?’

 

‘They’ll not understand it, probably,’ Harry shrugged. ‘I dunno, Mrs Weasley might –‘

 

‘Not ‘why will they’, why have they not?’

 

‘Oh.’ Harry winced at the ceiling. ‘I haven’t told them.’

 

There was a tense silence across Harry’s living room, in which he continued to carefully hold his eye line to the aging stone ceiling above Draco’s chair.

 

A long silence, in which neither of them moved, and Harry’s breath was so loud to his own ears he started tensing up painfully. Eventually he looked at Draco, who immediately met his eyes.

 

He didn’t look incredulous, or confused, or about to smack him, which Harry expected in increasing likelihood. Instead he just looked angry. And sad.

 

‘I don’t even know what to say to that.’

 

‘You don’t have to worry about it,’ Harry tried.

 

‘I don’t –‘ Draco sighed, shaking his head, looking around the room before settling back on Harry. He was clenching his jaw, and Harry could see the muscle bounce under his pale skin. ‘It’s been a long day, Potter. I don’t know if I can be fucked to even shout at you.’

 

‘Why do you care?’ Harry shot forward in his seat, until he was perched on the edge with his one elbow set on his thigh, leaning forward. ‘Why does it matter to you what I say to my friends –‘

 

‘I thought I was one of your friends,’ Draco offered, voice sardonic, swallowing hard. ‘Perhaps I’m best without your friendship, if this is what it gets you.’

 

‘Fuck you,’ Harry told him. ‘Fuck you. Like you’ve ever had to tell someone –‘

 

‘No, Potter, I have not had to tell someone I’ve chopped my arm off for some prick I went to school with. It’s not a common experience.’

 

‘Exactly, so I don’t see how you get to decide –‘

 

‘Decide what? How long you leave one of your most loyal minions in the dark?’ Draco laughed, humourlessly, before throwing his hands up. ‘I honestly don’t – I can’t believe this is something Harry Potter would do.’

 

‘I’m not a character in some children’s book, Malfoy,’ Harry told him, emphatic. ‘I don’t have to behave some particular way just because you think I would.’

 

‘So let me get this right – you don’t have to be a good friend, just because you’re the type of person to be a good friend,’ Draco rolled his eyes. ‘It doesn’t strike me as a valuable point worth proving.’

 

‘It doesn’t mean I’m not a good friend,’ Harry protested.

 

‘Of course,’ Draco shrugged. ‘Weasel will just turn up one day and see you’re missing a _fucking arm_ , and see _I’m alive_ , and he’ll just say ‘oh, hullo Harry, isn’t that weird, would you like to go to a Quidditch match with me’ –‘

 

‘Don’t call him Weasel –‘

 

‘I’ll get around to caring what you think about my clever nickname when you bother to tell the poor twat that you cut off your fucking arm.’

 

Harry let his mouth click closed, stunned.

 

Draco stood up then, glowering, and moved towards Harry’s desk. ‘I’ll do it for you, if you’re so worried what he’ll think.’ He thudded himself down in the desk chair and started sorting through quills in the top drawer. ‘Then I’ll make myself scarce, because Circe knows it’s going to go well.’

 

‘If you can see that, why are you yelling at me about it?’

 

‘Potter, I have spent years of my miserable life around your pitiful little friendship.’ One quill was selected and tossed unceremoniously down onto the desk, followed shortly after by the dull clunk of a glass inkwell. ‘You, Granger and Weasley makes three. I went to the effort – ‘ the drawer was slammed shut – ‘of graciously offering you my friendship –‘ the next drawer, with Harry’s spare parchment, was ripped open – ‘and saw you choose a _Weasley_ over me. Merlin a-fucking-live,’ he added. ‘A Weasley.’

 

Harry watched incredulous as a scroll of paper was tossed onto the desk and the second drawer closed with the kick of a foot. ‘If you hadn’t insulted Hagrid –‘

 

‘That is _not the point_ ,’ Draco’s tone was venomous. ‘The point is, you have some fucking gall to make me the person to come in the middle of all this.’

 

‘I’m not-‘

 

‘Yes, you are.’ Draco sat back to look at the ceiling with a heavy sigh, before looking back. ‘The longer you leave it the more of a slap in the face it is for Weasel to find out.’

 

‘I don’t know what to tell him,’ Harry whined. ‘I didn’t want to tell him before, because he would have stopped me.’

 

‘Would he have been so wrong?’ Draco asked him, and there Harry saw the point where his face tipped fully from anger to sadness.

 

‘Yes,’ Harry hissed. ‘Stop it. He would.’

 

Draco shrugged. He turned away, picking up the quill. ‘And now?’

 

‘I –,‘ Harry sat back. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words gripped at his throat like he’d swallowed a stone. He gripped the arm of his chair too tightly with him one hand, short nails clipping and scraping across the worn fabric, and the pin-prick pain of tears threatened at his eyes.

 

The sound of Draco pushing back the wooden desk chair echoed around the room, and Harry steadfastly stared at the window, breathing like it was something that needed focus.

 

‘Potter,’ a hand on his good shoulder.

 

‘I don’t want them to pity me, or tell me that I was wrong,’ Harry gasped out, and the tears started welling. ‘Molly – and Ginny and everyone, they’re going to act like I’m – like I’m fucking broken,’ he shrugged with his empty left side, his missing side. ‘I don’t think I can – I just can’t deal with that. And Ron. Ron’s not going to understand. He won’t – we’ll probably end up falling out, you know?’

 

Harry moved to look up at the other man, but caught himself, only able to focus low, at the pale long-fingered hand that was resting against his shirt. ‘He won’t get it, and we’ll stop being friends. And if I’m not friends with him, then the Weasleys won’t – I’ll end up losing them, too. I just can’t. I can’t do it.’

 

The hand squeezed, and let go, and in the sound of shifting robes Harry found himself shifted back a little as Draco sat down on the arm of Harry’s chair, arms folding across his chest.

 

Draco huffed a sigh, and when Harry looked up he realised the other man wasn’t looking at him; instead his focus was distant and considering. Harry pulled down his cuff with his fingers and scrubbed at the tears itching at his cheeks.

 

‘Granger understood.’

 

‘She knew I would do it anyway, there’s a difference,’ Harry smiled sadly. ‘Ron’s just – stubborn.’

 

Draco hummed, pensive. ‘Potter, you do realise that not telling him may have the same effect.’

 

Harry sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

 

‘No, not ‘you guess’,’ Draco said flatly. ‘The only difference being that if you tell him, you stop acting like his opinion doesn’t matter.’

 

‘If he can’t understand this, maybe it doesn’t,’ Harry’s voice was wavering, and still not as weak as his feeling behind it.

 

‘You keep acting like cutting one’s own arm off is a good decision,’ Draco told him. ‘You really shouldn’t be surprised when people disagree.’

 

Harry shrugged. ‘Too late, really.’

 

‘Write the letter.’

 

‘Okay.’

 

 

 


	16. Silver

Harry woke with the dawn on the Friday morning, the beginning glow of the yellow blue light of the sun on the sky as familiar to him now as the slight ache in his shoulder.

 

His arm was healing. Yesterday morning, when he’d showered before breakfast, he’d looked in the bathroom mirror to see the bright pink of new skin spreading across the stump of his bicep as the black of the scarring receded. He’d been able to look at it with nothing more than a slight lump in his throat.

 

Even so, he had it hurt, now and then. At night, when he was fast asleep and blissfully unaware, he’d rolled onto his left side too fully, too heavily, and the pain had shocked him awake like he’d been stabbed in the highest ribs. The ache he felt was a leftover from a night interrupted at least once in that way. The first time, he’d woken himself up moaning.

 

And woken Draco up too, judging by the way he was suddenly at the doorway of Harry’s bedroom, wand in hand.

 

Harry winced in embarrassment at the memory. Draco had told him to ‘keep his sex dreams to himself’ and loped back off to bed with a smirk.

 

Two days had gone since he’d sent that letter to the Burrow. It had hardly been carried out of sight of the grounds by the school owl when Harry almost expected Ron to be outside his door, hammering at the painting and calling him an idiot, asking him what the hell he was thinking.

 

When he’d not shown, Harry had waited patiently for an owl at breakfast the next day, so nervous that Draco beside him had tensed in sympathy when the post came in, but still nothing.

 

Harry sighed, swinging himself up to sit on the edge of his bed and scratching at his leg through his tartan pyjama trousers. He definitely deserved the silent treatment. From Hermione too, since he’d made her an unwilling liar. With Hermione at least he could pretend she was too busy working with the Ministry to send more than her short message about meeting on Saturday.

 

Tomorrow.

 

At least Harry had that. He loved seeing Teddy, even though every time he looked at the baby, with his small shock of bright fine hair that changed colours and his tiny fists covered in spit, his heart felt like it seized in his chest in sadness and guilt.

 

Teddy would like Draco.

 

Teddy _will_ like Draco.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

‘Most people’s hair looks worse in the mornings,’ Draco observed from his now official armchair, tying a tie over a freshly washed white shirt.

 

‘Thank you?’ Harry tried, as though he wasn’t just waiting patiently for the jibe he knew was coming.

 

‘Of course, your hair looks so terrible all of the time –‘

 

‘Yeah, thanks,’ he dropped himself down into his own chair, self-conscious, scruffy and unkempt while still dressed for sleep next to Draco’s carefully pressed suit. ‘You’re up early.’

 

‘I have had –‘ Draco paused, with one finger held lofty as he groped over to the table beside him. ‘A letter.’

 

‘Good letter?’

 

‘A Gringotts letter,’ Draco confirmed with a nod. ‘You’ll need to try and avoid dying during your lessons today without my help. I need to go to the bank.’

 

‘Oh,’ Harry said. ‘That’s good,’ he added, without much positive feeling.

 

Oh.

 

Draco had his money back.

 

He was going to leave.

 

‘It is good,’ Draco agreed. ‘I can stop wearing the same bloody clothes.’

 

‘You got your house back?’

 

‘Not yet,’ Draco shrugged, ambivalent. ‘I’m not particularly upset about that. Money, I am very happy about.’

 

Harry picked at the hem of his threadbare t-shirt, watching Draco fix closed his cuffs with his heirloom-looking silver cufflinks. ‘What’s the plan?’

 

‘Buy a lot of clothes,’ Draco told him, matter of fact.

 

‘Yeah, I got that bit,’ Harry nodded. ‘I meant generally. Now you’re rich again.’

 

‘I might also buy wine,’ Draco mused, straightening his sleeves.

 

‘No, you pillock,’ Harry smiled in spite of himself. ‘I mean, I hope you’ll still come see Teddy with me, but –‘

 

‘But what?’

 

Harry huffed, leaning back in his chair with a grunt. ‘But I suppose you’ll be legging it, now.’

 

‘Oh, Potter,’ Draco levelled him a clear-eyed stare that made Harry shift a little uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Legging it to where?’

 

‘I dunno,’ Harry said, defensive. ‘I assumed you have some ancient palace near Paris or something, that the Ministry don’t know about.’

 

‘How rich do you think the Malfoys are? It’s only a house. Though it is in the Arrondissement de Passy.’

 

‘I have no idea what that means.’

 

‘It’s terribly expensive. I’ll take you. It’s rather boring but there are a few good restaurants –‘

 

‘Malfoy – I wasn’t.’ Harry sighed, rubbing his face. ‘I more meant you’ll probably not want to hang around here.’

 

‘That’s what I agreed to do.’

 

‘You think teaching is boring,’ Harry tried, already stumped by the way the conversation had taken the rug out from under him. ‘I was just assuming –‘

 

‘I haven’t noticed your arm grew back overnight,’ Draco interrupted, with a pointed look at Harry’s left shoulder, hidden by the sleeve of his t-shirt.

 

‘No,’ Harry agreed, confused.

 

‘I said I’d help, at least until there was a better option.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Harry agreed again. ‘But –‘

 

‘Then it’s settled,’ Draco interrupted again, and then he had the audacity to get up and walk towards the portrait doorway like he hadn’t just left Harry reeling. ‘I’ll likely be back by lunch time. Don’t start petrifying students until I can watch it,’ he added, throwing on his robes.

 

‘What the hell,’ Harry just mumbled to himself.

 

He heard Draco exit through the painting, the dull thump of the frame re-seating itself to the wall in his wake echoing around Harry’s quiet living room. He slid down in his seat, belatedly remembering to wince as he felt the fabric of the chair pull at his sleeve and then letting his face rest when he was pleasantly surprised by the lack of subsequent pain.

 

Harry didn’t – was that what they’d agreed? He didn’t know if he remembered it properly.

 

He was so sure that when they’d decided that Draco was going to help him, it had the addendum of ‘until you have better options’.

 

Better options definitely seemed to include some expensive house in some place that sounded French and important, and the kind of aristocratic that seemed to suit Draco Malfoy right up to the ears.

 

Harry huffed to nobody.

 

Why was he complaining?

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

A few quietly murmured charms and Harry was managing quite well at breakfast, slipping his wand back into his trouser straps as bits of sausage and bacon finished dancing their way onto his plate, and wrapping his fingers around a burning hot cup of tea.

 

All it took was one week, and he was sure he could see a few pointed looks and whispers because Draco _wasn’t_ at the teacher’s table.

 

Henry Walters over at the Gryffindor table even looked worried, though perhaps because he thought he might get the blame for whatever they thought was wrong with Professor Malfoy. Harry wanted to stand up and announce that Professors cannot be taken ill or die from the belated effects of a broken arm.

 

Harry huffed a dramatic sigh, not for the first time since entering the hall, and the Headmistress turned to give him a curious look over a pair of spectacles.

 

‘Problem, Professor Potter?’

 

Harry flushed, embarrassed. ‘No, I’m fine, it’s just – Malfoy’s gone to Gringotts.’

 

McGonagall nodded, as if that explained everything. ‘Do you require help with your lessons in his absence?’

 

No! No, I’m fine,’ he shook his head, hand gripping nervously around his teacup. ‘It’s not a problem at all, really.’

 

‘But you still find it troublesome,’ McGonagall – Minerva – said wryly, filling her own cup.

 

Harry flushed darker then. ‘I guess I’ve gotten used to it.’ Him.

 

Minerva nodded sagely, and returned to her tea. Harry pretended he didn’t notice the small smirk around the corner of her mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Harry made the most of his boring and uneventful lesson plan across the morning, a lecture about vampires in third lesson so dull that even he was struggling to stay awake and wishing for the end by lunch time. A quick nip to the hall to grab a sandwich, and he was able to breathe.

 

He relaxed into his desk chair, spelling the board clean with one swipe of his arm, and he was starting to flick balefully through a pile of what promised to be borderline terrible essays on redcaps when Draco swanned in to the classroom with a drama that suggested he’d only just restrained himself from a dramatic flourish.

 

His clothes did all of the dramatic flourish for him, anyway.

 

Harry resisted the urge to thud his head down onto his marking.

 

Draco was wearing new robes. A slim, precise cut of bruise purple, over a black suit and matching shirt and tie. He’d even gone to the bother of putting on a set of silver tips on the collar.

 

‘Welcome back, Malfoy,’ Harry said to the ceiling, after his eyes stopped rolling.

 

‘Thank you,’ Draco intoned graciously, perching himself on the edge of a desk. ‘I could have been back earlier, but I wanted them to get the fit right.’

 

‘Of course,’ Harry rolled his eyes again.

 

‘Jealousy isn’t a good look on you,’ Draco informed him primly. ‘You know, you have money, too. If you go to the shop with me, I could –‘

 

‘Make me look like that?’ Harry shook his head, chuckling. ‘Everyone would think I was polyjuiced.’

 

 ‘They probably would,’ Draco agreed.

 

‘I think I’m fine.’

 

‘Did I miss anything?’

 

‘They all asked me where you were,’ Harry admitted, easing back in his chair. ‘They definitely think you’re better than me.’

 

‘Of course they do,’ Draco offered, with a slight tilt of his head.

 

‘Don’t rub it in,’ Harry told him, smiling. ‘Fifth years after lunch, then we’re free. For the whoooole weekend,’ he added, sliding back further. ‘Then it starts all over again.’

 

Draco made a disgusted noise.

 

‘Still sure you’re not legging it?’

 

Draco caught his eye, considering. ‘I’m beginning to think you want rid of me.’

 

‘No,’ Harry started, jerking himself up in his chair. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

 

‘Especially now all your students like me more than you.’

 

‘No,’ Harry protested again, this time a little more relaxed; he tried readjusting himself in his chair, attempting to uncrumple his robes that now looked so worn next to Draco’s. ‘And not all of them.’

 

‘All of them,’ Draco told him, sighing. Harry was tempted to throw some homework at his head, since he was so determined to be the better teacher.

 

‘You do this one, then,’ he said instead. ‘And I can be the one who takes a nap.’

 

‘Body-bind curse?’ Harry nodded. ‘Not likely. I’m not getting my new robes dusty.’

 

‘Malfoy,’ Harry protested. ‘Since you got the morning off, it’s only fair.’

 

‘I’m sorry, at what point did I start being paid for this?’

 

‘I think I have a Galleon in my pocket –‘

 

‘Potter, do not try to bribe me with pocket change, I am far too expensive.’

 

‘Obviously,’ Harry said, gesturing to the collar tips. ‘How much were those, even?’

 

Draco considered him for a long moment. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he decided. ‘I’m going to try and make you wear them, and if you knew you’d refuse.’

 

‘So, that’s obviously not going to happen,’ Harry nodded. ‘Not unless you glue them to me while I’m asleep.’

 

‘That’s an idea.’

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Fifth years were the hardest, Harry decided, after his second attempt at controlling the room when a spell practice session got slightly too noisy and out of hand.

 

It was hard to get a bunch of fifteen year olds to listen to you, when you were only a few years older, and in most cases not that much taller. And there was more of them than the older classes, since more of them returned after the war. And fifth year – this one, the proper one, not the curriculum he’d had – had all of the interesting curses in it, so it was a bit like herding cats with wands.

 

And there was an added problem of the class being a Slytherin / Gryffindor split, so for every pair of eyes looking dutifully at Harry and Draco, there was at least one wand pointed at another student.

 

Harry sighed, bracing himself on his desk with his one hand, his own wand tucked precariously behind his ear in a practical solution that would have made Moody smack him around the head. ‘Alright, listen – listen!’

 

Slowly but surely, the noise in the room lowered to a murmur, and further to silence when Draco shot a sharp glare around the class.

 

‘If you keep treating this like a free-for-all, someone’s going to get their head split open,’ Harry huffed, suddenly feeling the edge of a creeping exhaustion. ‘Stick to pairs, and stick to your mats. I know it’s funny,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘to curse your mates when they’re not looking. But if I see someone else do it, it’ll be fifty points gone.’

 

A disappointed groan rose through the cluster of students, and Harry shook his head. ‘Yeah, I know, how unfair. Okay, keep going,’ he added, and by the time he’d started the last word they’d already set off spelling at each other again.

 

Harry slumped down to sit on the edge of his desk, wand plucked from his ear to grip it loosely at his hip, ready for the next inevitable ‘accidental’ fall to an area of the floor unprotected by padding or already occupied by another student. Draco met his eye from across the room, considering, and Harry just shrugged.

 

They weren’t as bad as they could be, he supposed.

 

They weren’t actually as bad as Harry and Draco had been.

 

Harry caught himself smiling them, flicking his wand to shift a padded mat a few inches to the side to better catch a Slytherin girl who immediately afterwards met it with a whumph of air. He watched as Draco released her with a _Finite incantatem_ as he made his way over.

 

‘Early weekend, possibly?’ Draco sat himself next to Harry on his desk, a pose that they’d taken to over the course of the week. Harry shot off another _Finite_ and sighed.

 

‘Probably shouldn’t. Half of them are only managing the legs,’ he said.

 

‘True. But consider this – I did buy wine.’

 

Harry laughed, turning to look at him. ‘I thought you just saw those robes and decided to combine the two.’

 

‘Potter, don’t pretend you don’t like my robes.’

 

‘I’m not,’ Harry shrugged. ‘I think they’re very pretty.’

 

‘Prett- well. No wine for you.’

 

‘I’m probably just going to fall asleep after this anyway.’

 

‘Potter, I swear for a moment I just blinked and you turned into Professor Binns.’

 

‘That hurts,’ Harry laughed. They watched in unison as a misfired spell hit an unsuspecting Gryffindor in the back, causing him to fall forward into his friend, both of them hitting the mats. Harry winced. ‘Okay, you win.’

 

He pulled himself up, stretching as Draco ended the bind on the student. His stretch was quickly aborted when the newly freed Gryffindors strode after the Slytherin who’d made the mistake, voices raising over that corner of the classroom.

 

‘Okay, enough – that’s –‘

 

As Harry made his way through the room, Draco moving at another angle, a fight broke out between a pair of boys, one firing off a stinging hex at the other as their classmates moved – some towards as well as away.

 

Harry threw up a shield as the spell went wide, his mouth twisting into a scowl. ‘That’s enough! Come on –‘

 

Two more jinxes, and Harry jerked to block them. He moved to grab the closest boy by the shoulder, a Gryffindor named Trevor Wallings, pulling him back as he moved forward to put his body between them.

 

As Harry opened his mouth, he heard someone beside him yell out the body-binding curse, and with the flash of white light so close he resigned himself to feeling his legs seize underneath him.

 

When the feeling didn’t come, Harry spun on his heel, incensed, looking for the student responsible.

 

Instead, he saw Draco, frozen on the ground. He had one arm lifted, as if to block his face.

 

Harry’s breath caught, and the _Finite_ was gasped out, lungs only filling again when Draco’s arm relaxed and his face changed from surprise to relief.

 

Harry took one deep breath, then a second, gripping his hand too hard around the length of his wand.

 

‘Get out of my classroom, all of you! NOW!’

 

 

 

 


	17. Stars

 

The classroom emptied in seconds.

 

It was Draco who had been hit by the curse, but Harry’s heart seized like the spell had hardened up his own insides, freezing them in place.

 

He let himself drop to his knees on the padded mat beneath him, everything in him focused on taking in another breath, releasing it, repeating, until he could begin to relax the grip of his hand against the wood of his wand.

 

‘I’m starting to be really fucking glad I bought that wine,’ he heard Draco tell him. The other man’s voice was wry, controlled, but Harry felt a warm grip of fingers take a gentle hold around his wrist.

 

Harry huffed in reply, squeezing his eyes shut.

 

‘It was only a moment,’ Draco told him, and Harry shook his head.

 

He waited until he felt control return over his own voice. ‘I was being stupid, thinking I could do this.’

 

‘You can.’ Harry looked up to meet Draco’s eyes. He was sat close across from him, weight held on his hip and one palm propped to the floor. The other hand tightened around Harry’s sleeve. ‘I’m fine. Gryffindors are idiots.’

 

‘It wasn’t a Gryffindor –‘ Harry started, defensive, and when Draco’s mouth twisted into a smirk he had to bite back a small smile in spite of the heartbeat that was still drumming in his ears. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

 

Draco tilted his head, considering. ‘Well, my arse hurts.’

 

Harry chuckled, looking down at the point long fingers circled around the purple of his shirt. ‘At least it’s still attached to you.’

 

‘I thought we were supposed to be feeling sorry for me,’ Draco said, releasing him. Harry watched as he elegantly unfolded himself to stand up again, brushing off his new robes before offering Harry an outstretched hand. When Harry took it, he was surprised to feel the strength of most of his weight pulled upright without much effort of his own.

 

Harry shrugged, looking down balefully at his own dusty knees. ‘I probably shouldn’t have shouted.’

 

‘Potter, they’re lucky I’m not actually a teacher,’ Draco raised an eyebrow. ‘They’d all have detention, and no points left.’

 

‘You are a teacher,’ Harry protested. ‘Better teacher than I am.’

 

Draco spelled his trousers clean, and the padding rolled itself into neat bundles by the work of invisible hands, dancing across the floor to stack in the open cupboard. ‘Scarier teacher, maybe.’

 

Harry sighed, pocketing his wand to rub his hand through his hair. ‘I wish I felt like I knew what I was doing.’

 

‘You do. It was one accident.’

 

‘A fight,’ Harry corrected him. ‘I was stupid to think we were over all that.’

 

‘As far as I remember, nobody was called a Death Eater, or compared to a toilet,’ Draco smirked. ‘This is something different. Students fight.’

 

‘They don’t fight in Minerva’s classroom.’

 

‘Potter, give it forty years and a better pair of glasses and maybe they won’t fight in yours.’

 

Harry sighed, letting himself slump into a wooden chair at the edge of the classroom. Draco followed him, twisting his wand in his hand in the motion Harry recognised from the number of times the other man had threatened his hair, or his clothes, with an ‘improvement’. ‘Still think I’ll be here in forty years?’

 

‘Do you not want to be?’ Draco flicked his wand again, finishing the sharp movement with a bobbing beat that chivvied the remaining desks and chairs to move back into their places across the floor.

 

Harry shrugged. He looked towards the front of the room, where his pile of marking and textbooks balanced precariously across the messy oak desk. ‘Where do you want to be?’

 

‘Potter, I don’t think that’s the kind of thing I can answer before the wine.’

 

Harry met his eye. ‘Because it’s embarrassing?’

 

‘Because it’s depressing,’ Draco sighed. A final flick and the dark roll of blinds descended across the expanse of windows, shutting out the early evening sun and changing the colour of the room to the warmer light of gas lamps.

 

‘Why is it depressing?’

 

Draco sighed, face tight like he was frustrated. ‘Because I’m an ex-Death Eater and ex-statue with no NEWTS, friends or family. I’m lucky I’m not in prison. The future isn’t –‘ he swallowed, hard. ‘It isn’t anything, is it?’

 

Harry frowned, pressing the pads of his fingertips too hard into the flesh of his thigh. ‘Even in your expensive house in France?’

 

Draco shrugged. ‘Maybe. Living out the family money by myself somewhere new.’ He moved beside Harry, leaning his back against the wooden panelling of the classroom wall. His head tilted back, and Harry heard the quiet thud of the impact of the back of his head against the wood. ‘It’s better than being stuck in that spell. But,’ a sigh. ‘It still just sounds like slowly dying.’

 

Harry swallowed, his throat dry. ‘Maybe you were right about the wine.’

 

Draco turned his head to look at him, mouth twisting up into some small kind of smile. ‘Potter, I’m always right about wine.’

 

‘Okay,’ Harry said, patting his hand on his own leg. ‘I’ll go by the kitchens for sandwiches or something. Then we can get pissed.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry was dropping himself down into his armchair, fire roaring and beginning to cut through the chill holding over his living room, when Draco emerged from his bedroom with a small box, floating it over to the floor by the fireplace with the dull clink of glass on glass as it seated on the carpet.

 

Harry raised one eyebrow, and Draco sat down with his own thud, robes left behind along with the expensive-looking jacket and waistcoat. He watched as Draco held the handle of his wand in his teeth as he worked at unfastening the tight knot of his silk tie. ‘Is that shrunk?’

 

Draco rolled his eyes, nodding. A quick jerk of hawthorn towards the box and the spell was broken; the box, originally the size of a shoebox, creaked and clanked as it grew, until it was the size of Harry’s trunk. Harry’s other eyebrow joined the first.

 

‘That’s too much wine,’ he protested.

 

Draco looked at him, reaching behind himself to loop his abandoned tie over the high back of his armchair. ‘Is that a challenge?’

 

‘No,’ Harry told him, horrified. ‘We’d die.’

 

Draco huffed, unbuttoning his collar. ‘Spoilsport.’

 

‘Why did you buy this much wine?’ Harry asked, incredulous. ‘There’s like, twelve bottles.’

 

Draco shrugged, smirking. ‘I wanted to buy something expensive. The wine they had wasn’t particularly expensive. So I bought a lot of it.’

 

For a moment Harry let himself imagine the look that Ron would have on his face, if he could see Malfoy and his wine crate. He bit his lip, shaking his head, trying to free himself of the image and the squeezing around his heart that came with it. ‘I do not understand you at all.’

 

‘I don’t see why you’re so scandalised.’

 

Harry laughed. ‘I guess you wouldn’t. I’m just not really used to – spending money, I guess.’

 

Draco gave him a curious look. ‘The Potter family is nearly as old as the Malfoys. And nearly as rich.’

 

‘Like I said, when you were…’ Harry gestured towards the window, limply, with his one hand. ‘I didn’t really know anything about it. Hagrid was the first wizard I even met.’

 

‘Still doesn’t explain why you’re so fond of him,’ Draco said, his tone just snotty enough that Harry felt his hackles go up a little.

 

‘He gave my cousin a pig tail. I thought he was brilliant.’

 

Draco chuckled, sitting back to ease off his brightly shined black leather shoes. ‘Fair enough.’

 

‘You were the first wizard my age I met,’ Harry realised, suddenly. ‘You were such a little shit.’

 

‘I’m not still?’ Draco held a hand to his heart, offended.

 

‘Even more of one,’ Harry told him flatly, and smiled when Draco nodded with a seriousness.

 

He watched from settled deep in his chair as the other man pulled himself up, kneeling carefully on one leg to sort through the bottles in his stupidly large crate. The quiet clinking rang through the comfortable silence in the living room, and he leaned forward to pull down an old crochet blanket from the back of his seat, settling it over his lap.

 

‘We’re the only ones left, aren’t we,’ Harry said to Draco’s back.

 

‘Little shits? Definitely not, with some of these students around.’

 

‘Malfoys and Potters,’ Harry clarified.

 

Draco sat back on his heels, hand braced against the edge of the box. He looked into the fire, thinking. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

 

Harry frowned, pulling his blanket up to his chest. ‘Do you think about – kids, and families and stuff?’

 

Draco didn’t answer him straight away, instead turning back to select a bottle, standing up with the base if it clutched in the palm of one hand, wand tip pointed at the cork. A soft squeak and he was pouring Harry a large glass on the table beside him, doing the same for his own, and then easing himself back into his own chair.

 

Harry watched as he took one long drink from his glass.

 

‘Yes,’ finally came the answer. His voice was low, and Harry heard a thickness behind it.

 

Harry busied himself with his own glass, drinking then resting it on one leg with his hand at the stem. ‘I haven’t.’

 

‘You and the Weasley girl –‘

 

‘Yeah,’ Harry admitted. ‘For a while I thought we would – in a weird way, I guess. I didn’t really think about it at all, to be honest. And then.’ He swallowed, let the base of the glass spin a little on his thigh so the red of the wine swirled in a vortex against the sides. ‘I thought I was going to die, so I just decided it wasn’t going to happen.’

 

‘And then?’

 

‘And then I was just happy to find a reason to be here,’ Harry smiled wryly, attempting to gesture with one shrug of his shoulder the entire castle and its essence to him. ‘I didn’t think very far ahead of that. Except getting you out.’

 

Draco nodded, brow furrowed at him. Harry shrugged again, languidly, returning to his drink.

 

‘And now?’

 

‘At what point did you become my mind healer?’ Harry asked him, smiling around the rim of his glass. It was Draco’s turn to shrug then, turning his attention to the fire.

 

‘I’m interested, I suppose. You already had your turn with the uncomfortable questions.’

 

‘Sorry,’ Harry said, and meant it. ‘I didn’t mean to-‘

 

‘It’s fine. I’m not offended,’ Draco told him. ‘Even by the little shit comment.’

 

‘Well, you were,’ Harry said, defensive. ‘Anyway, what about you? Kids in your expensive French place.’

 

‘Potter, I would not do my children the disservice of raising them in France, of all places.’

 

Harry chuckled. ‘I’ve never been, so if it’s that bad I don’t know.’

 

‘I said I’d take you.’ Draco swirled his own glass. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to bring myself to stay there permanently, though.’

 

‘London?’

 

‘I don’t know. What you said, about being the last ones,’ Draco took another long drink, refilling his glass. ‘My ancestors would kill me, if I let the Manor go to ruin.’

 

‘I could help you clean it out,’ Harry offered. ‘It doesn’t have to be – what it is now.’

 

‘No,’ Draco agreed, looking then at the piles of old books ringing the room. ‘I suppose it doesn’t.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

‘Alright, fine – what would you name your kid?’

 

Draco flung his head back in a disgusted noise, from his seat at the floor by his crate of wine bottles, working on the cork of their second. ‘I have no idea – I’m just saying, respect the man or not, Albus is a terrible name for a baby. Who names a baby Albus?’

 

‘I think it’s a very dignified name. Who names a baby after a dragon?’

 

‘It’s a constellation,’ Draco informed him, with a pointed finger. ‘You might not have been brought up in magical society, but it’s not unusual. Andromeda is a constellation. _Albus_ is just cruel.’

 

‘After a star, then,’ Harry conceded, ‘it’s not that different from an animal.’

 

‘Many stars,’ he was corrected. ‘Many majestic stars.’

 

‘If you have to call your own name majestic, you’re probably losing the argument,’ Harry said, unfastening his shirt at the second button.

 

‘This is an argument?’ The cork popped free, and Draco gestured for Harry’s empty glass. ‘I thought I was saving some poor little bastard a life of misery.’

 

‘It’s an argument, and you’re losing it,’ Harry took another long drink of the wine. ‘If you can think of a good name I’d be impressed.’

 

Draco tilted his head, considering. ‘Another constellation, maybe.’

 

‘Taurus,’ Harry intoned. ‘Canis Major.’

 

‘Obviously _not_ those ones.’

 

‘Sextans!’

 

‘I am absolutely not going to name a baby Sextans.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

Opening a third bottle was probably a bad idea, Harry thought, tapping his index finger pensively across the rim of his wine glass.

 

Harry watched as Draco, back sitting across from him, slid Harry’s own spectacles on and off his face as he looked around the room.

 

But then again, his glass was empty. And Draco might have said that the wine wasn’t very expensive, hence the quantity, but Harry was pretty sure it tasted very nice and therefore very expensive, and if he really thought about it he wasn’t particularly sure where he would guess Draco’s definition of expensive would be, in the grand scale of expensive things.

 

‘I’m drunk,’ Harry informed him.

 

‘And blind,’ Draco responded, flopping back and still wearing the spectacles low on his nose.

 

Harry shrugged fluidly, rolling the bowl of his glass around in his palm. ‘Because you have my glasses, Draco.’

 

‘You must be drunk,’ Harry watched as the wire frame of his specs were pushed up onto the top of Draco’s white-blond head. ‘You called me by my actual name.’

 

‘Draaaaaco,’ Harry said, feeling the word in his mouth. ‘Have I not done that before?’

 

‘Nope.’

 

‘You haven’t called me Harry, either.’

 

‘Now I’m just disappointed in both of us.’

 

Harry hummed, eyeing the crate. ‘Draco. How much did you pay for this wine?’

 

‘Harry. It is rude to enquire about the finances of others.’

 

Harry squinted suspiciously. ‘That means loads, doesn’t it.’

 

‘Rude,’ Draco just repeated, with a cautionary finger.

 

‘Like, a stupid amount of money.’

 

‘Rude.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry wasn’t actually sure at what point his shirt had come entirely open, just that when he eased the window next to his desk ajar to cool the room and the hot flush he was experiencing, the rush of wind picked up the hem and caused it to flap against his stomach and make him shudder.

 

Returning to his armchair allowed him to discover that it had been unexpectedly occupied by someone else.

 

‘Draco, get out of my seat.’

 

‘The other chair is perfectly fine.’

 

‘So why aren’t you in it?’

 

Draco flopped back to look at him, his own shirt half undone and wrinkled and a slight flush of pink in a bridge across his nose and the high points of his cheeks. Harry considered him for a moment, before plucking his spectacles off a pale head and replacing them on his own face. ‘This one has the good breeze from the window,’ Draco conceded.

 

‘I know, that’s why I want it.’

 

I bought the wine,’ Draco said, as if Harry had already agreed to a bartering system.

 

‘Move, or I’ll sit on you.’

 

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

 

‘I’m a teacher, I can sit on you if I want.’

 

‘I don’t recognise your authority,’ Draco said, and poked him in the chest.

 

Harry grabbed the hand, on reflex. They both looked at their joined hands for a moment.

 

‘Your hand for the chair,’ Harry concluded, deciding that a bartering system might go in his favour.

 

Draco looked at him for a long moment. ‘No.’

 

Harry huffed. ‘Move over, then.’

 

‘Definitely not wide enough.’

 

‘Fine.’ Harry released his hand. Instead he eased himself down to the floor, shuffling to rest the right side of his back against the edge of the chair cushion in between Draco’s legs, and sighing when the chill of the wind from the window reached his face.

 

They sat in pleasant silence for a moment, and Harry shifted to ease the weight of his shirt off his left shoulder, freeing the skin to the fresh air and away from the itch of the sleeve.

 

He felt the gentle weight of a hand on the crown of his head, and fingers carding through the mass of dark hair. He resisted the urge to let his neck relax sideways, and let his ear rest against the black wool of Draco’s knee so close to his face.

 

 ‘Do you even comb this?’

 

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Harry mumbled, and then did let his face press into the fabric.

 

‘That’s not an answer.’ Long fingers teased through his hair from the back, and the sensation left a tingle like goosebumps down the back of Harry’s neck.

 

‘Sometimes,’ Harry shrugged, and then let out an angry grunt when a section of his hair was pulled. ‘What time is it?’

 

The leg he was pressed to jiggled around a bit, as above him Draco stretched to retrieve his wand from his pocket and cast a _tempus_ charm. ‘Just after midnight.’

 

Harry grunted again. ‘Should go to bed, for seeing Teddy.’

 

‘Babies and hangovers,’ he heard Draco say. Then, ‘Ugh.’

 

Harry nodded into Draco’s knee, agreeing. Neither of them bothered moving.

 

Harry picked at the hem of his shirt. ‘You know…’ he began, before losing confidence, letting his voice trail off.

 

‘I know?’

 

‘There was something I said, when – before I knew that you were in there. You know.’

 

‘You said a lot of things,’ Draco said, as his fingers ran through again. His voice was teasing, but after a moment his hand stopped, resting to smooth over the crown of Harry’s head with his thumb. ‘It helped. I felt like I knew what was going on.’

 

‘Well,’ Harry itched at his neck. ‘Minerva said at breakfast, that Slughorn still wants to retire this summer.’

 

There was a silent moment where the thumb stopped but Draco’s hand remained on his head. Harry waited patiently, watching the fire with the one eye that wasn’t obscured by trouser leg, until the moment stretched just a bit too long and he started to feel a budding nervousness in his stomach like his breath was sitting there in bubbles.

 

‘I haven’t got any NEWTS. In Potions or otherwise.’

 

‘Neither do I,’ Harry countered.

 

‘Slughorn hates me.’

 

‘Slughorn’s stupid. Minerva likes you.’

 

‘What makes you think that?’

 

‘She let me cut my arm off to make you real again.’

 

‘That just means she likes you. Too much,’ Draco’s hand moved then, ghosting past Harry’s ear to drop down onto his thigh. ‘I’m not a war hero.’

 

‘You are to me,’ Harry felt tumble out of his mouth, and he clicked his teeth back together in regret, cheeks heating up.

 

‘Potter…’ The leg jiggled again, nervous or uncomfortable or what Harry didn’t know. He sighed, awkwardly trying to drag himself up from the floor, one handed and a little bit clumsy from the wine. A hand caught him under his right armpit, an oddly familiar gesture to him by that point, and they both ended up standing too close together in a jumble of moving limbs next to Harry’s chair.

 

Harry saw Draco’s face, eyebrows drawn down as he edged away from the seat and further away from him. A strong, stupid wave of wanting to grab him by the arm, pull him back, pushed forward through the fog of his mind and was quickly rejected.

 

Draco rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Go around telling people that Death Eaters are war heroes, and you’ll get punched.’

 

‘No, that was stupid,’ Harry groaned, uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t mean – well, I did. But I just mean that you saved my life, and you didn’t – do anything that wrong.’

 

‘Anything that wrong,’ Draco repeated, mouth a bit open. ‘You’re too drunk.’

 

‘Maybe. Doesn’t mean it’s not true.’

 

‘It does that. Go to bed, Potter.’

 

Harry tilted his head back, eyes closed, defeated. ‘I’m going to say it again tomorrow. When I’m not drunk.’

 

When he opened his eyes again, looked at Draco, there was an unfamiliar look in his eyes that had Harry thrown. Like, fondness, or something beyond wry humour, that made his stomach flip over.

 

Draco’s mouth opened, then closed. Instead, he looked past Harry to the bedroom doors, running one hand through his long fringe. ‘You do that.’

 

Harry felt a wave of the strong urge to throw his hand up in the air in some sense of victory. He looked around, taking in the empty wine bottles, cushions everywhere across his rugs and stone floor. His shirt wide open. Fuck it, he thought, and did it anyway.

 

Draco’s expression turned unimpressed, as Harry stood in the middle of his living room, arm up above his head and his shirt flapping with the cold night air.

 

‘Go the fuck to bed, Potter.’

 


	18. Cloth

Harry felt himself pull to consciousness like he was being dragged to it, and when he opened his eyes his bedroom was still lit only by the cool light of the moon reflecting off the lake. He shuffled around in his bed for a moment, muddled and still a bit drunk. He was on his right side, half covered, not too hot or too cold. He didn’t need the loo. His wand was safely on his bedside table, where he left it, along with his spectacles.

 

He dug his shoulder further into the mattress, wriggling to find a comfortable position again, and closed his eyes. That was when he heard Draco – a low cry, from beyond his bedroom door.

 

Harry threw himself up out of bed, grabbing his wand and hissing at the pain of the raw skin of his injury scraping across the edge of his sheets. He fumbled with his wand a second, jabbing himself as he shoved it into the waistband of his pyjama trousers, freeing his hand to shove back on his glasses, before retrieving it and rushing out of his bedroom, pausing for a moment in the empty living room and then using his good shoulder to ease open the ajar door to Draco’s.

 

Draco was in bed, twisted at his waist, bedclothes kicked to the floor. As Harry stopped, unsure, he jerked violently away from the open doorway, moaning but still asleep.

 

Harry took a shaky breath, grip tightening and loosening nervously on his wand.

 

He held his back against the door a moment, not sure what the best thing to do, until Draco twisted and yelped again and he knew he couldn’t go back to bed and ignore it.

 

Harry rushed over, dropping his wand beside the bed to free his hand that he used to press awkwardly along the length of Draco’s outstretched forearm. Over the mark, bright against stark pale skin. ‘Draco – it’s a nightmare, you’re okay.’

 

Draco’s eyes snapped open, first focusing on the canvas of the bedframe and then turning, blinking and seeing Harry more clearly. Harry bit his lip, face worried. ‘You’re okay.’

 

The room held in silence for a moment, and Harry forced himself to release his arm, turning away, feeling a chill creep up his back in embarrassment, realising he’d probably overstepped, invaded Draco’s privacy. He moved to get up, go back to bed, pretend he’d never been there at all, when Draco’s hand reached out, gripped him by the wrist again like it had so many times before now, and Harry swallowed heavily. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to –‘

 

‘It was that fucking body-bind,’ Draco said then, his voice dry and quiet and cracking like he’d been yelling for hours, and maybe he had and Harry’d slept through it. He turned onto his back, staring up at the cover of his four-poster bed, but the hold remained around Harry’s wrist.

 

Harry winced, letting his head fall. Stupid. His stupid lesson plans and being unable to control his own students. ‘Fuck, I’m sorry.’

 

‘I just – ‘ Harry saw the bob of Draco’s adam’s apple in the low light from the open bedroom door. ‘I go to sleep, and I’m back out there. Just – stuck.’

 

Harry’s mouth opened, but he didn’t know what to say. It’s not real – but of course he knew that, Harry knew that himself every nightmare he’d had about Sirius and Voldemort and – and everyone. Not that it made any difference, they still kept happening, and it still felt real, when he was asleep.

 

‘I shouldn’t have let that happen,’ he said instead, to the heavy cloth at the back of Draco’s bed, above the dark wood of the headboard.

 

Draco turned his head to look at him, and Harry could see that his eyelashes were clumped by tears and Draco’s face was exhausted, like he’d been awake for months. Like he was straight out of the marble statue again. ‘You’re such a fucking martyr.’

 

Harry’s eyebrows knitted together, but the feeling of injury from the words came and went as if it was nothing. Instead he sighed. ‘Yeah, you’ve said.’

 

‘I didn’t – ‘ Draco’s sigh echoed his, and a pale hand appeared to rub at his eyes. ‘I meant, it’s not your fault. Not everything is your fault.’

 

‘Some things are.’

 

‘Not this.’

 

Harry looked at the enchanted window, that peeked a blueish light through heavy curtains. ‘I wish I could help.’

 

The hold on his wrist tightened for a moment, a brief squeeze, until the rasp of skin on skin moved to become one long-fingered hand resting over his own. ‘So if it’s not your fault, it’s something you have to fix?’

 

Harry gave a sad smile to the window. ‘Yeah, pretty much.’

 

Draco gave a short laugh, more of a harsh bark than anything. ‘That’s bullshit, Potter.’

 

Harry looked at him. ‘You okay?’

 

‘Yeah,’ Draco’s head tiled back, eyebrows coming down to give one last angry look at the canopy before shifting, catching Harry’s eye. ‘Well. No, not in particular.’

 

Harry frowned. ‘Have you been – is this every night?’

 

The eye contact broke, and Draco jerked his chin, uncomfortable. ‘I’ve tended to be sober enough to silence the room.’

 

‘Malfoy – ‘

 

‘Potter.’

 

‘Draco,’ Harry tried again. ‘Pomfrey will have some dreamless sleep, if you ask for it.’

 

‘I can get over it.’ A shrug, and the soft rasp of Draco’s skin against the sheets. ‘It’s nothing.’

 

‘Nightmares every night isn’t nothing,’ Harry said, and if anyone knew that, it was him.

 

Draco’s eyes moved back again, the grey of the iris so pale in the moonlight it gave him a supernatural quality. ‘And if I said that to you?’

 

‘You’d be right,’ Harry answered, but twisted his face. ‘And I probably wouldn’t listen to it.’

 

‘Exactly.’

 

‘So you’re saying, if I’m an idiot, you’re allowed to be an idiot.’

 

‘Ye- hmm. Perhaps.’

 

Harry smiled, turning his hand on the bed, until palm met palm. ‘Want me to leave you alone, now?’

 

A quiet moment, where Draco avoided his eye and looked instead at their hands on the sheets between them. ‘No, not really.’

 

‘I can get a chair, and you can try and get back to sleep. And I’ll wake you up if it gets bad.’

 

Draco’s turn to twist his face. ‘And turn up to my estranged aunt’s home with a half-dead Harry Potter?’

 

Harry shrugged. ‘I usually turn up half dead anyway, so she won’t blame you.’

 

‘No. Stay here.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘Stay here,’ Draco repeated, and gave him a slight tug on his arm towards the bed, not nearly strong enough to unseat him or risk catching his shoulder. Harry’s eyes widened, and Draco scoffed. ‘I won’t punch you in my sleep. Probably.’

 

‘Are you still drunk?’

 

‘Yes,’ Draco answered, and edged himself back on the mattress. ‘Are you not?’

 

Harry thought about it. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted.

 

‘Then it’s fine,’ Draco told him, like that made any sense. ‘I won’t even sell the story to the Prophet.’

 

Harry chuckled in spite of himself. ‘You know, you shouldn’t remind me about things like that when I can suffocate you in your sleep.’

 

‘With one hand?’ Draco gave him a long look. ‘I think I can fight you off.’

 

Harry was sorely tempted to reach for a pillow and test it out. Instead he eased himself into the bed, careful to rest his weight away from his shoulder as he settled. Draco laboriously retrieved the sheets from the foot of the bed and the floor, and unceremoniously threw them over his legs, letting Harry adjust them higher over his torso.

 

They lay in companionable silence for a while, and Harry listened to the sound of them breathing as it filled the dark room around him.

 

‘That thing, that I was going to say tomorrow,’ Harry spoke softly, but the deeper notes of his voice seemed to echo.

 

Draco twisted in the bed onto his shoulder with the sound of rustling cloth and a small grunt, and Harry tilted his head to have bright grey eyes meet his own in the low light of a sunrise sneaking in through nearly closed curtains. ‘Potter.’ He sighed, and let his eyelids slide shut. ‘Don’t make me commit murder.’

 

Harry felt his mouth twist a little in a small smile, unseen. ‘Is it that bad? The idea?’

 

‘It’s worse than that.’ Draco shuffled again, this time to situate himself more comfortably on his side facing Harry, although his eyes only opened briefly, half-lidded, before closing again. ‘I think you’re too optimistic by half, that it’s even possible.’

 

‘Minerva said it,’ Harry told him, perplexed. ‘You’re good at potions.’

 

‘I’m excellent at potions.’

 

‘So,’ Harry said, resolute, to the dark red of the canopy. ‘You’d be in a different classroom, I suppose, in the dungeons… And I’d miss the help,’ he added lamely. I’d miss you. But Malfoy would still be there at meals, still be in the castle. Still be nearby to him, and Hermione and Ron weren’t, anymore. ‘But you could start in September, and you could even do your NEWTS this summer.’ He nodded to the darkness, a resolute jerk of his head to the ceiling that had his hair audibly rasp against the pillow.

 

Harry heard a snort, and when he turned his head again he found himself fixed with a calculating stare that reminded him of being looked at by a dragon that knows it can eat you whenever it likes. ‘And when the complaints begin?’

 

Harry remembered Remus then, with such a sudden and painful thought that it felt as if he’d been punched in his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He grit his jaw for a moment, closing his eyes and sighing. ‘I’ll be behind you on it. And so will the Headmistress.’ He lifted his hand to his face, rubbing his eyes and letting it drop back to run his fingers through his hair and rest on the pillow.

 

Malfoy’s eyes flicked up and down his face, face around his eyes tight. ‘And you’d actually want that?’

 

‘Might as well use the Harry Potter thing for something good,’ Harry made a face. ‘For once.’

 

‘No,’ Draco said. ‘Me working here, for the foreseeable future. Not just until you’ve a solution for your arm.’

 

‘’Course,’ Harry said, and flushed in the darkness. He coughed, moving his arm to awkwardly pick at the hem of the sheet across his chest. ‘Would you hate it?’

 

‘Teaching?’ Draco focused on the window past Harry’s head, eyebrows drawn in. ‘It wouldn’t be terrible, if it was a worthwhile subject.’

 

‘Defence is worthwhile,’ Harry admonished, smiling a little when he was rewarded with the faintest of smirks. ‘But I also meant working here. With me around.’

 

‘Well, you are annoying,’ Draco told him flatly, and the smirk grew into something full-fledged and wry. ‘But I wouldn’t be forced to spend all day with you.’

 

Harry snorted. ‘Lucky me.’

 

Draco’s mouth twisted into a smile, and he wriggled again on the mattress. ‘It’s an option.’

 

‘Yeah, it is,’ Harry agreed. ‘Good.’

 

‘Did McGonagall really suggest it? Or did you suggest it to her?’

 

‘She really did,’ Harry told him, face open. ‘I think Slughorn might be really annoying her.’

 

‘Possibly just by breathing.’

 

Harry chuckled, letting his eyes close in one long blink. ‘Even if you don’t want to do it, you might get guilted into it.’

 

‘Is that how she got you?’

 

‘A little bit,’ Harry admitted. ‘But I think we both knew she was doing me a favour.’

 

‘Potter, you do realise she’d be doing me one too,’ Draco told him. ‘Especially when the Board of Governors hears about it.’

 

‘Minerva says the Board is a bunch of new people, too, that we can talk to,’ Harry said. ‘’Mione will help if we need it. We have Orders of Merlin.’

 

‘Spare me the celebrity,’ Draco drawled. ‘As I said. It’s an option.’

 

‘It’s a good one. Free dinner.’

 

‘Yes, Potter. Now let me sleep.’

 

‘Okay,’ Harry said, and pulled the sheet up a few inches further so Draco couldn’t see the grin that was threatening his mouth.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Harry’s alarm went off that morning, a loud trilling sound from his wand tucked under his pillow, the sound of it brought him to consciousness with a tangible feeling of horror and the thumping pain of a headache building at the base of his skull and at his temples.

 

He fumbled around haplessly for a few long seconds, fruitless for long enough that Draco contributed a commentary of a long, tortured moan from the other end of the bed.

 

‘Sorry,’ Harry mumbled, grabbing the wand to silence it and drop it back on the crumpled sheets so he could use his one hand to rub at his eyes. ‘Bugger.’

 

‘Too fucking right, bugger,’ Draco echoed from deep in a nest of pillows and blankets.

 

Harry eased himself to the edge of the bed, stretching his toes against the worn pattern of the ancient rug under his feet. He looked over his shoulder to see the bright blond of Draco’s hair disappear more decidedly under the Gryffindor colours of the bed throw, and smiled to himself. ‘You alright if I go in the shower first?’

 

His only answer was another long, laboured moan.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry gripped the handle of his wand between his teeth as he fumbled with the buckle of his belt, looping the end through the metal and pulling it tight and trying to trap the loose length under his elbow as he tried to ease the buckle into place. The strap slipped from under his arm to become too loose, and he swore around the wood in his mouth.

 

About to try again, Harry felt the cold tingle of a charm on his fingers before the band released itself from them of its own accord to dutifully fasten itself through the buckle and through the loop of his jeans. Harry looked up to see Draco watching him with a raised eyebrow, one hand fastening the top button of his shirt even as his wand gestured towards Harry’s waist. ‘Honestly, Potter. How often do you forget that you’re a wizard?’

 

‘All the time,’ Harry admitted, shrugging. ‘I’m happy every time I remember I don’t have to do the washing up.’

 

‘The what?’

 

‘Never mind,’ Harry snorted, shrugging on his weekend robes. ‘Mrs Tonks lives near Aberdeen, I can apparate us when we get out of grounds.’

 

‘Please do try not to splinch us,’ Draco said as he sat to put on his perfectly clean brown leather brogues. ‘We’re already one limb down as it is.’

 

Harry chuckled, spelling his own laces. ‘So you’ve stopped feeling bad about that one.’

 

Draco looked up, considering, mouth turning towards a frown. ‘Do you really believe I have?’

 

Harry was taken back a moment, biting the inside of his lip. ‘No, I – No, even though you should.’

 

‘Should I?’ With a charm and his own shoes fastened, Draco stood up to walk toward him. ‘Jokes aside, Potter –‘

 

‘Harry,’ he reminded him, slipping his wand into the pocket of his robes. ‘Forget it. Just,’ Harry rolled his shoulders in a shrug. ‘We’re never going to agree on that one.’

 

‘I must have missed it, when we agreed on anything,’ Draco said. ‘Due to you being highly disagreeable.’

 

Harry gave him a long look. ‘No splinching, you said?’

 

Draco’s eyes narrowed. ‘I think you forget I’ve beaten you in every duel we’ve had.’

 

‘This year,’ Harry added, then smiled winningly at Draco’s pantomimed glower. ‘Get your stupid expensive robes on so we can see Teddy.’

 

 


	19. Wood

A nervous twitch in Draco’s hand had evolved into full-blown fidgeting with his robe hem by the time they reached beyond the gates of the school, early November wind whipping up around them and making Harry’s hair even messier than it usually was.

 

Harry reached out, taking hold of Draco’s arm, ostensibly to get ready to apparate but more to prevent the agitated bounce of pale fingers as they moved up and down the dark purple fabric. Draco’s face looked pinched in the cold weather, and the look he gave Harry was guarded, and Harry resisted the urge to squeeze in reassurance in case it was too patronising.

 

‘She is expecting you,’ he tried instead, keeping his voice light.

 

‘Maybe she just wants to curse me,’ Draco said dryly, but the smirk he gave with it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Harry sighed, and squeezed his arm anyway.

 

‘Are you ready?’

 

Draco nodded, a short jerk of his sharp jaw, and Harry concentrated hard, wincing at the tell-tale twist of black as the side-along apparition pulled them in and out of contortion as they moved violently across time and space.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

When the world turned right again, they were standing next to the gate at the end of the garden path that Harry had pictured so determinedly in his mind. He heard Draco breathe in a deep gasp of air and felt him ease away the tight grip he’d had around the bicep of Harry’s arm.

 

‘That bad?’ Harry loosened his own hold, stretching his fingers. Draco shook his head, though his pale skin did seem to look paler than usual.

 

‘Not terrible – it just doesn’t help when you already feel like vomiting.’

 

Harry wrinkled his nose in sympathy, confidence waning by the minute. Turning up at someone’s house with one fewer arm than they’d last seen you with was one thing; that, and bringing their estranged nephew to throw up on their carpet, was another thing entirely. ‘Hold on, we’ll give it a second for you to – you know.’

 

Draco pulled a face, taking measured breaths. ‘Come to my senses and run away?’

 

‘Get sorted,’ Harry smiled, scrubbing at his hair. ‘You can, if you really need to.’

 

Draco caught his eye, steeling his shoulders. ‘Aunt Andromeda was a Slytherin. We’ve already tripped the wards. She’s probably looking through the window.’

 

Harry leaned to his left, past Draco’s body to look behind him. Through the gabled window of the living room, he saw Mrs Tonks take hold of Teddy’s chubby hand and give him a little wave. Harry grinned, a laugh bubbling out of him, and Draco answered it with the sigh of someone feeling long hard-done by.

 

‘Come on, then,’ Harry told him, grabbing him by one shoulder to turn him and march him down the garden path.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Harry dropped himself down on the sofa, patting the place next to him to a nervous Draco with baby in arm. When they’d reached the front door, he’d had the sudden and forlorn realisation that Mrs Tonks would go to hand Teddy over to him, like she’d always done, and he’d have to explain then and there – that he was now and forever slightly less practical as a god-father. Instead, Draco had turned from scuffing clean his shoes to adopt a look of surprise and terror when a blue bodysuit-bedecked cousin had been unceremoniously slid into his arms.

 

Mrs Tonks sat down in her own armchair, flicking a wand over her shoulder and watching with the carefully schooled face that Harry just knew was hiding amusement as Draco gingerly sat down, hands full of wriggly, slightly damp-faced Teddy. Teddy was burbling and giggling away, his hair slowly but surely turning from the muted brown Harry remembered from Remus to a shock of almost-white blond that perfectly matched the hair on Draco’s mildly horrified head.

 

‘Well, isn’t this a turn up for the books,’ Mrs Tonks said, as the table beside her filled with a large practical teapot and mugs.

 

‘Uh, yeah,’ Harry said, pulling his eyes up from watching Teddy try and succeed to grab Draco’s black silk tie in what were probably sticky hands, as Draco tried and failed to prevent it. ‘It’s a bit of a long story.’

 

‘I imagine it is,’ Mrs Tonks smiled, watching Teddy yanking gently and edging the tie closer to his mouth, despite Draco’s protests. ‘I also imagine it has something to do with your arm.’

 

Harry flushed, glancing to his left where he’d carefully dragged over his robes.

 

‘Slytherin,’ Draco reminded him, and Mrs Tonks gave him an appraising look, amusement still at the edge of her mouth.

 

Harry coughed, trying to busy himself with letting Teddy grab a small but sure hold on his fingers. ‘When we, erm, realised that Draco wasn’t dead, it was part of the spell we needed to use to get him back.’

 

‘Dark magic, no doubt,’ she told him, and the look had changed from appraising to a little bit unimpressed.

 

‘It was the only option,’ Harry rushed out, defensive.

 

‘I told him not to,’ Draco said at the same time, and Harry shot him a look. ‘Saving people appears to be a difficult habit to break,’ he added, shrugging. Harry huffed, feeling ganged up on. Teddy pulled his fingers in closer to mouth wetly at them.

 

‘He’s teething,’ Mrs Tonks told him, after an awkward silence. ‘Try not to lose the other arm.’

 

Draco snorted.

 

‘Suddenly everyone has these arm jokes,’ Harry muttered to Teddy, pointedly not looking at the twin Black family smirks. ‘I need you on my side, Teddy.’

 

‘No doubt he’ll make them, when he can talk,’ Draco said, lifting the baby more assuredly, letting him rest his weight on the tiny feet balanced on Draco’s thighs. ‘Won’t you, Teddy?’

 

‘I didn’t bring you so you could turn him against me,’ Harry told him.

 

‘Too bad,’ Draco rolled one shoulder at him, bouncing Teddy on his feet. ‘You’re the authority figure. I get to be the fun uncle.’

 

‘Cousin,’ Harry corrected. He tried to catch Teddy’s attention with a wave of his fingers, but Teddy was totally transfixed and mesmerised by Draco as the two blonds looked curiously at each other. ‘Totally replaced. Of course.’

 

Mrs Tonks smiled at him. ‘Tea?’

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harry sat on the floor in front of the large fireplace, his legs loosely crossed in front of him as he leant his weight on the heel of his hand. In front of him, Draco tilted his head back and sighed as the baby in his lap threw a bright wooden brick at his half-finished tower and knocked it down for the sixth time. ‘I’m telling you now, Hufflepuff.’

 

‘Hey,’ Harry protested mildly, shifting onto his hip to reunite Teddy with his brick. ‘Nothing wrong with Hufflepuff.’

 

‘Potter, that just makes you sound like one.’ Draco dutifully rebuilt the first level, and Harry caught him giving a soft smile when Teddy added his brick to the next.

 

‘You do like babies,’ Harry said accusingly.

 

‘I do nothing of the kind.’

 

‘You do,’ Harry repeated, leaning over to add his own brick. ‘You love them.’

 

‘Lies.’

 

Teddy burbled, and the tower came down again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Mrs Tonks sent them out of the door with pockets filled with leftover sandwiches from lunch wrapped in greaseproof paper, and Draco’s tie covered in wet patches that he tried to spell clean as they cleared the path.

 

‘Not dead,’ Harry told him, grinning, as he adjusted his now slightly right-heavy robes.

 

‘No,’ Draco admitted, looking back at the house. Harry bit his lip. There was a bit of bright red strawberry jam in his blond hair, just behind his ear. He tried to disguise the building snigger into a cough. ‘What?’

 

‘Nothing,’ Harry looked away quickly, chewing the inside of his mouth. ‘Absolutely nothing. Hermione’s probably waiting at the school gates. Should we go?’

 

Draco’s eyes were narrowed at him.

 

Harry tried to look innocent, and offered out his hand. Draco took it, and they disapparated.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Hermione was waiting against the grey stone of one of the gate pillars, wrapped up tightly against the weather with a thick wool scarf over her chin and mouth and her nose slightly pink from the wind.

 

Having popped back into the world with a low crack, Harry felt Draco release his arm with a sharp movement to shove his hands into his pockets. Slightly put out, Harry shoved his own hand into his trouser pocket, walking over to Hermione with a rhythmic crunch of gravel underfoot and Draco trailing behind.

 

She pulled down her scarf to flash him a small smile, letting it slip a little when she saw the guarded look on Draco’s face that was eating away at the bottom of Harry’s stomach. ‘How was Teddy?’

 

‘Great,’ Harry smiled back, pulling his shoulders in against the cold. ‘He’s still growing fast.’

 

‘Great,’ Hermione echoed, rubbing together two gloved hands. ‘I have a portkey, for where we’re going,’ she added, patting at one pocket. ‘A couple of minutes and it’ll be active.’

 

‘’Where we’re going’?’ Harry’s brows pulled together. ‘You know, you didn’t actually tell me anything. Like where we’re going, or why.’

 

Hermione tilted her head a little at him, looking once in a quick flash towards Draco beside him and back, giving him what he was sure she thought was a nonchalant smile. ‘It’s a surprise. Okay?’

 

Her eyes flicked back to Draco again, just for a moment, and Harry let his face twist a bit further. He turned to look at Draco himself, who was gazing off towards the stonework of the school gates with a bored expression. ‘A ‘surprise’,’ Harry repeated again, and was rewarded with Draco turning his sharp jaw to give him an unimpressed look.

 

‘Honestly, Potter. You’re starting to sound like my great aunt Theresma’s awful pet parrot.’

 

‘Pet parrot,’ Harry said, and received a slap across the back of his head.

 

‘Portkey?’ Hermione interjected brusquely, offering the end of an old empty mackerel tin towards them as Harry rubbed at his skull.

 

‘You’re coming, yeah?’ Harry looked at Draco, who was eyeing the tin with a bit of uncertainty. He watched as Draco shot a quick look at Hermione, who was observing them both with a bit of busy impatience in her smile.

 

‘Of course, Potter. Merlin knows you might get yourself into trouble.’ He reached out and pinched the edge of the tin in two fingers, them bobbing a little up and down as Hermione gestured with it towards Harry himself. Harry snorted, grabbing the cold metal of the tin in his hand, the tips of his fingers brushing against Hermione’s and Draco’s as they stood together in a tight circle around it.

 

‘Wait – am I likely to get into trouble?’

 

Harry heard Hermione bite off a giggle, and begin to open her mouth to reply – just as he felt the almighty tug behind his navel that dragged him into magic travel once again.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Thudding back into reality, Harry found himself being steadied between one purple-clad arm at his shoulder as another one in thick brown knit caught him around the hip. The three of them were in the shadow of one long row of resolute looking terraced buildings in a wide paved street. People milled past in a mix of robes and muggle jackets, with the odd umbrella, in a way that reminded Harry of a more modern-looking Hogsmede. The building they were closest to had a large shop window in the ground floor, with hand painted signs in a different language propped in one corner in front of a large sheet of white cloth that obscured the interior.

 

‘Swedish?’ Harry guessed, squinting at the signs in that window and the next, and hanging from archways down the busy street.

 

‘German,’ Draco corrected, letting go of his arm. ‘Idiot,’ he added.

 

‘Posh prick,’ Harry grumbled. Hermione covered a snort of laughter by pretending to turn and look at the shops around them.

 

‘We’re in Berlin,’ she told him, with the air of someone teaching; the kind of air that Harry purposefully avoided himself, because he knew exactly how incredibly patronising it sounded. ‘The girl in the Department of Magical Transportation told me it was really nice, when I was there sorting out the portkey.’

 

‘I’ve always thought it was a bit full of -.’ Draco looked down the street, frowning. ‘Non-traditionalists,’ he finished, tactfully. Harry sighed.

 

‘This is the first time we’ve been,’ Hermione caught his eye with a sharp look, daring him. Harry tried to edge a little bit back beyond her eyeline to give him a warning look, maybe try to sign out ‘do not engage’ with one arm. Draco met her eye solidly, jaw set.

 

‘Paris is much more interesting.’ He shrugged, one loping movement of his left shoulder. ‘You would like it. A lot of bookshops.’

 

Harry saw Hermione’s mouth quirk up a little in a smile, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. ‘Right, great. So,’ he gestured to the street. ‘Berlin. Why are we in Berlin?’

 

‘Oh!’ Hermione flapped her hand, adjusting her scarf before gesturing to the window they were stood beside. ‘We’re here to go to this shop.’

 

 Harry looked back at it again, with its unassuming plain white sheet and dark sign in a language he didn’t understand. ‘For?’

 

‘You’ll see,’ she assured him, grabbing him by the elbow. Draco edged forward to pull open the door, pulling back to let them past with a drippingly sarcastic bow, and when Harry caught his eye while passing he gave him an amused smirk.

 

The interior of the shop was small and nondescript, a small cluster of aging leather chairs in the front leading to a back wall covered in shelves full of boxes of varying sizes, blocked off from customers by a long and ancient-looking bench with one end hinged to open and close. A bell above the door rang in a clean, pealing sound as Draco followed them in and shut it behind them, closing the room back to a warm yellow-white light from hanging lamps.

 

Draco pulled up behind him, close enough that Harry could feel the warmth of his body through his own thick winter robes. Harry resisted the urge to drop back, uncertain, when Hermione strode up to the bench and a man appeared from a dark wood-bordered doorway.

 

By Harry's guess, he was only maybe a handful of years older than them, but had that clean, professional look that Harry was familiar with from the staff that worked in Madam Malkin’s. The back of Harry’s neck prickled, uncomfortable, when the man’s eyes went straight to the empty space at Harry’s side that he thought he had well hidden under his clothes.

 

‘Granger and Potter,’ Hermione introduced herself with a small bounce in her step. ‘And, erm, friend.’

 

In his ear Harry heard Draco snort.

 

‘Good!’ The man clapped together his hands, the word punctuated by the slightly guttural hard stop of a heavy German accent. ‘My father is in the back – one moment,’ he added, and disappeared again.

 

‘Hermione, what –‘

 

Draco moved up to his side, and Harry felt the slightest contact of fingers around the cuff of his sleeve. ‘Do you think they do solid gold?’

 

Oh.

 

His arm.

 

They were going to try to replace his arm.

 

Merlin.

 

What if it – what if it didn’t work?

 

Or what if they couldn’t make him one?

 

Harry swallowed thickly. ‘Was this a surprise because you thought I wouldn’t do it?’

 

He’d spoken softly, on purpose, but Hermione jerked back like he’d shouted. ‘Of course not, Harry, no. I didn’t mean to – ‘

 

The grip came firmer then, and Draco interrupted. ‘Make Granger feel guilty later. Give this a chance first.’

 

Hermione opened her mouth again, but was interrupted again by the man re-entering the small shop, this time with a much older black and grey haired man in tow. This wizard was holding his wand at handle and point between two large hands, and from the moment he was through the doorway he was sizing up Harry and his shoulder with a calculating expression.

 

For all that he was a Gryffindor, that look made more than one small part of Harry want to turn and run out of the door.

 

‘Wonderful,’ the older wizard told them, gesturing for his son to flip open the bench and join the two spaces. Harry tried to focus on steeling his back. ‘Mr Potter, it is of course a pleasure to meet. I am Albert Stamos, and this is my son Otto.’

 

Otto offered them a jaunty little wave, gesturing for them to take a seat. Harry let himself be steered towards a high-backed leather chair, Draco and Hermione on either side of him.

 

The older wizard – Mr Stamos – dropped himself casually into a chair across from him. With some quick wand work, the younger shopkeeper drew in a low table, with the tall profile of an ornate coffee set popping into existence. At Mr Stamos’s offering hand, Draco eased forward to pour himself a small cup, in an elegant way Harry assumed was a product of some etiquette knowhow or other that he and Hermione were too classless to have. Harry just picked at the edge of his armchair nervously.

 

‘When it is your preference, we would begin with some measurements of the arm,’ the older man began, resting his own cup down on the table after an awkward silence. ‘It is normal for that to be uncomfortable.’

 

Harry dug his short nails into the cold resistance of the chair. ‘I don’t – I mean,’ he swallowed. ‘I don’t really know how this works.’

 

‘That is understandable. Not many people know about what we make until it’s needed,’ Mr Stamos nodded with a small shrug and smile.

 

Harry avoided his eyes, looking instead at Otto Stamos as he moved around the tall shelves at the back of the room. ‘You make – wooden legs and stuff?’

 

‘Prosthetics, yes. We do not always make them out of wood,’ Mr Stamos returned to his coffee. ‘The magic works well with many materials.’

 

‘Gold?’ Draco interjected over his own coffee, and Harry dropped his face into his hand.

 

Mr Stamos chuckled, leaning back to gesture at his son, who was now collecting a number of long boxes from the shelves. ‘Yes, gold, and silver. Many metals, maybe some stone. We work with weight first, then we build, add and take away.’

 

Grey boxes were dropped into the table next to the coffee, and Harry dragged in a calming breath. He was starting to get his hopes up, and hating it. ‘Do they – do they move?’

 

‘Yes, they move. As well as your own.’ Harry looked up, and Mr Stamos met his gaze with warm brown eyes. He reached down to open the topmost box, and tilted it for Harry to see.

 

Inside, lying palm down against grey silk, was a disembodied forearm, created in a deep and warm mahogany wood with a beautiful craftsmanship beyond what Harry had ever seen in all of the shops of Diagon Alley. Each finger of the hand was precisely articulated, the joints seamlessly melded in a burnished grey metal, and the back of each finger was minutely carved with a suggestion of living skin and short, indented fingernails.

 

Harry sat back, spine slackening into his chair. Hermione looked at him with a pinched expression. ‘What do you think?’

 

Harry smiled, letting it build into something like a stunned grin. ‘I want one,’ he told her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It took over an hour for Harry to let himself be fully measured and transcribed by the two men in a meticulous, patient fashion on a gold edged scroll embossed with his name at the top. They’d first measured his freshly healed stump, including three perfectly precise sketches in life size from the front, back and side using a spelled quill. Then his right arm was floated, measured, weighed, sketched in its own right, while Hermione and Draco chatted curtly over their coffee.

 

Harry eventually exited the small shop fastening the last button of his shirt with his one hand and feeling a thousand tons lighter, like an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders, now slightly sore from the prodding.

 

He was getting a new arm.

 

 

 


	20. Ember

Harry kicked his worn trainers in the direction of his bedroom door, easing down into his armchair – the one with its back to the door and the crochet blanket, as had now been wordlessly assigned to him over Draco’s highbacked and grey one closer to the window. Said armchair was immediately occupied, as Draco picked at the tight laces off his perfectly shined and unblemished brogues.

 

Harry slumped back, letting himself imagine for a moment a Draco Malfoy dressed in one of his old t shirts or a Weasley jumper, and tried to turn the smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth into a nonchalant itch. ‘I’m kind of surprised you didn’t want to go shopping.’

 

‘Oh, I did,’ Draco shrugged, dropping one shoe to the floor and starting on the other. ‘I doubted your Granger would have tolerated it for too long.’

 

‘Buy her a book and she’ll forgive a lot,’ Harry shrugged. ‘It’s usually how me and Ron got away with spending an hour in Fre – in his brother’s joke shop,’ he finished lamely, picking at the edge of his jumper.

 

Hermione had said a brusque goodbye to them within seconds of them landing back at the school gates, with a kiss on Harry’s cheek and a begrudging nod at Draco. She’d almost made him an offer of a Burrow visit, a gentle ‘you should pop in if you…’ that trailed to nothing and Harry could only respond to with a weak ‘yeah, course’ and a shrug with no feeling, and after she’d popped away they’d walked the ten minutes to Harry’s rooms in silence.

 

Harry swallowed, abandoning the jumper to bite at the edge of his thumbnail, trying to pretend he didn’t feel the sharp eyes reading his face.

 

‘Perhaps you should,’ Draco broke the silence with a low voice and the thud of his other shoe hitting carpet.

 

‘Should what?’ Harry asked around his thumb, like he didn’t know.

 

‘Should stop cannibalising your only hand,’ a pale eyebrow was raised in his direction. Harry frowned, wiping his hand dry against his chest and meeting eyes with the cold fireplace instead. ‘And visit them.’

 

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Harry said, dismissive.

 

Draco sighed, and the grate of the fire flashed to life under Harry’s scrutiny with a flick of a hawthorn wand. ‘Look, Potter. I’m not your mind healer.’

 

‘Exactly, you’re not.’ Harry rubbed the palm of his hand roughly down the coarse fabric of his thigh in jeans. ‘I sent that letter, so I don’t know – I saw Teddy, today. And ‘Mione, and I had to explain this –‘ a jerking hand towards his left – ‘ to Andromeda. So. Could you just leave it?’

 

Draco frowned, lips pulling tight with it as he turned away.

 

They devolved back to silence then, the room echoing with only the gentle cracks and spitting of the fire and the ever-present creaks and groans of an old castle around them. Running out of ways to nervously fidget, Harry ran his fingers through his hair, wincing when they caught on a knot at the crown of his head. He made a face, glancing towards Draco and expecting a comment or a look, but Draco was still turned away, the light of the fire warming his profile.

 

Harry huffed a sigh, felt it come from his bones. ‘If he didn’t reply to the letter, then – doesn’t that mean he doesn’t want to see me?’

 

‘I don’t know,’ Draco told him, eyes still on the fire.

 

‘Me neither,’ Harry grimaced. ‘Maybe I should wait until – until I’ve got an arm. So Molly isn’t too upset.’

 

‘Maybe,’ Draco offered, voice flat.

 

Harry huffed. ‘And you’re upset with me, now, too?’

 

Draco snorted, finally turning his jaw just a few inches to look at Harry out of the corner of his eye. ‘Not particularly.’

 

‘Then why the – ‘ Harry fumbled for the words, instead just awkwardly gesturing at the space between them. Draco watched his hand, and shrugged, looking back at the fireplace.

 

Silence built up again, a few beats long enough that Harry had opened his mouth, ready at another attempt at articulation when Draco broke it.

 

‘I don’t know why I care.’

 

‘About what?’ Harry asked, nonplussed. ‘About Ron, or the arm thing?’

 

‘Weasley,’ Draco confirmed, with the jerk of one shoulder and the wordless refusal to use his given name. ‘It shouldn’t really be anything to me, your friendship. Either way.’

 

Harry frowned, looking at the fire himself as if it held some necessary secret. ‘No, I suppose not.’

 

‘So,’ Draco turned to glance at him, then back away, and his expression was cool verging on controlled in a way Harry hadn’t seen since before – before the curse, and the statue. ‘I don’t know why I care.’

 

‘Because you’re my friend?’ Harry tried.

 

Draco sighed. ‘Yes, but – if Weasley is back in the picture, I doubt that will last. So why would I – ‘

 

‘Ron doesn’t get to tell me who my friends are,’ Harry interrupted, irritated. ‘Even if he’s not pissed off at me, you’re thinking about working here, so –‘

 

‘That doesn’t sound like more bother than it’s worth to you, at all?’ Draco shot him a wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘If Weasley’s back, you won’t _want_ me as a friend anyway.’

 

Harry’s mouth snapped closed, twisted. ‘That’s absolute crap. That’s definitely not true.’

 

‘That’s probably it,’ Draco continued, back at the fire, ignoring him. ‘That’ll be why I care.’

 

‘Why, because – ‘

 

‘Because I don’t like being a replacement.’

 

Harry gaped. ‘Why would you tell me to – why would you get me to write, and visit if you thought – if you thought you were a replacement?’

 

Draco shrugged, a sharp movement of his head and shoulders as Harry saw the shadow of the firelight pick up the clenching of his jaw. ‘It makes sense to get it over and done with, before I do something stupid like agree to work with you.’

 

Harry’s heart clenched, one hard punch in his chest. ‘Could you stop being a dick for five seconds?’

 

Draco’s jaw swung round, fixing Harry with a hard stare in flint grey. ‘At your pleasure.’ He unfolded, a sharp movement, and before Harry could get his bearings he was sweeping past the left arm of Harry’s chair and towards the spare bedroom – Draco’s bedroom.

 

‘I just want to – ‘ Harry started, before he was abruptly interrupted by the loud click of Draco’s bedroom door returning to its frame in his wake.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry sat in angry silence, picking at the frayed leather of his chair with short fingernails, until the sunset eased into a twilight darkness through bare windows and a house elf popped into his living room to encourage the waning fire and leave a large plate of sandwiches on the table next to Draco’s abandoned chair, before catching his expression and vanishing again.

 

It was such bullshit that he’d accuse him of – that he thought Harry was trying to replace Ron with him, like Harry was growing out of touch with Ron and just happened across frozen marble Malfoy and thought losing an arm for that made any fucking sense.

 

Like he could even replace Ron? Ron was – Ron was his best friend from a conversation over sweets on the train, Ron was at his back. Most of the time. Ron definitely wasn’t expensive robes and sarcasm and blond hair.

 

But now Draco was something, too, and the idea of neither of them speaking to Harry again gave him a strange hollow, empty feeling in his chest and like he wanted to punch something. Even if Ron – if Ron could be okay with everything, maybe. Harry had this new friendship – thing – with Malfoy that he wouldn’t give up on even if Ron couldn’t understand it or tolerate it like Hermione could.

 

Harry didn’t give up on things easily. If Draco didn’t understand that yet, he was going to.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry pulled himself up from his chair, back clicking with the effort and the stiffness of a few hours of quiet thought and intermittent seething. He picked his wand out of its straps, flapping to light up the room with more than the low glow of the fireplace as he made his way towards Draco’s bedroom door.

 

He leant against the solid wooden frame of it with his right shoulder, rapping a short knock out on the panel with the knuckles of his hand. ‘There’s sandwiches if you want them.’

 

A long, awkward pause, in which Harry heard the creak of furniture, and he resolutely didn’t move from the doorframe, choosing instead to knock again once, then twice. More silence. Then, quietly – ‘Fuck off.’

 

‘I’m not going to fuck off.’

 

‘Piss off, then.’

 

‘Malfoy,’ Harry sighed at the door. ‘Not doing that, either.’

 

There was another moment’s silence, and then the soft sound of socked footsteps towards him. The oak door opened to reveal Draco, in crumpled white shirt and black trousers and messy blond hair framing a pinched face. ‘I heard you. Sandwiches.’

 

‘And juice, I think,’ Harry added, shrugging. ‘Not why I’m here.’

 

‘Do tell,’ Draco answered him, propping his weight against a hand on the frame Harry was leaning against.

 

‘You’re not a replacement.’

 

‘Duly noted,’ Draco nodded once, curt, and began to close the door. Harry edged past it, dodging right to avoid his left side being caught as Draco pushed it to. ‘For fuck’s sake, Potter.’

 

‘No, this is important,’ Harry told him, watching as Draco abandoned the door handle and instead turn to cross his arms over his chest and consider him. ‘You’re not a replacement, at all, because I couldn’t replace Ron anyway. You’re not him, or like him at all,’ he clarified at the raised eyebrow. ‘I don’t see why I can only have so many friends.’

 

‘That’s a question to raise with yourself, I think. Since you seem to only have two at any time.’

 

‘That’s not fair,’ Harry frowned, slumping back against ancient wallpaper now he was safely ensconced in the room. ‘Neville’s my friend, for one. And Luna.’

 

‘Two of any quality,’ Draco added, twisting his mouth. ‘Do you have a habit of invading bedrooms?’ He added, with a pointed look at Harry suddenly occupying his wall uninvited.

 

Harry flushed, tilting his head. ‘Not really. Sorry,’ he added, withdrawing a little into himself in his place at the wall. ‘It’s just – what you said was total crap. I don’t know what’s going on with – I need to work it out, with Ron. And that’s my problem. But I want you to –‘ Harry trailed off, blushing more at the raised eyebrow and expectant expression on Draco’s face, leaning against a poster of his bed and his arms still defensively crossed. ‘I want you to be my friend, either way,’ he rushed out.

 

They both stood quietly for a moment.

 

Draco huffed through his nose. ‘We’ll see.’

 

Harry glowered at that. ‘No, fuck off. That’s how it is.’

 

‘Be your friend, or fuck off? And in my bedroom uninvited. Mixed signals, Potter.’

 

‘It’s not like I’m in your bed,’ Harry shot back, then caught himself, blushing. ‘Is that a problem?’

 

One pale eyebrow shot up. ‘Your not being in my bed?’

 

‘No!’ Harry went red, then, glaring at Draco’s short of amusement. ‘That I want to be your friend and Ron’s. Even if there’s problems.’

Draco’s face turned serious, looking past Harry to the enchanted windows giving off the dim white moonlight of a winter evening. ‘And ‘we’ll see’ is not an acceptable answer.’

 

‘No,’ Harry nodded. ‘It isn’t.’

 

‘Fine.’ A pale hand lifted to brush his fringe out of his face. ‘Then no, I suppose it isn’t a problem.’

 

‘Good.’

 

‘For now.’

 

‘Malfoy – ‘

 

‘Potter.’ Draco ran a hand through his hair again, and Harry realised how tired he looked. ‘Would it be that hard for you not to push this?’

 

Harry opened his mouth to answer, paused, and huffed frustration through his nose. ‘Yeah, if it means you won’t think about teaching.’

 

Draco caught his eye, slumping more against the bedframe. ‘Why is that so fucking important to you?’

 

Harry’s dark eyebrows pulled down, as he fisted his hand roughly into the pocket of his jeans. ‘Am I wrong that it could make you happy?’

 

‘Just because something works for you and your ego, Potter, doesn’t mean that it’s for everyone –‘

 

‘Fuck off with that, it’s not ego,’ Harry jerked his jaw, fist tightening in his pocket. ‘I’ve seen you, you enjoy it, you’re way better at it than I am.’

 

‘So what you think you know about me should dictate my choices?’

 

‘So that’s not true, then?’ Harry shot back. ‘So you don’t enjoy it?’

 

Draco’s annoyed expression faltered, looking away and back as he took in a breath. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things,’ he said, with a long close of his eyes. ‘I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if you’ll want me here, a year from now. I don’t know if they’ll even let me be a fucking professor. Don’t bother,’ he added, when he saw Harry open his mouth in rebuttal. ‘I respect the Headmistress, but she isn’t everything.’

 

‘Snape used to bully the fucking students and they kept him on,’ Harry burst out, bitterly, and winced when he saw Draco’s expression. ‘I  - sorry. I’m sorry, it’s just – if you take your NEWTs this summer there’d be no fucking reason for you not to be here. You’re not a – you’re not a werewolf,’ he added lamely, swallowing. ‘Or a – whatever the fuck Quirrell – what he was doing. I’m not going to let other people blame you for shit that wasn’t your fault.’

 

‘There was plenty that was, Potter. That I blame myself for. You can only put so much on a dead father,’ Draco laughed humourlessly. ‘My father did a lot, but even you can’t blame him for breaking your fucking nose.’

 

‘Yeah, yes you did that –‘ Harry took a deep breath, eyes up at the ceiling and back. ‘And I – I’ve done things too, haven’t I? Things people don’t know about, even, like that – like that spell in the bathroom.’

 

Harry watched Draco’s eyes change, from irritated to surprised to guarded in a moment. ‘Let’s not pretend that cutting up a Death Eater isn’t on your list of good deeds.’

 

‘So nearly murdering another student with a spell I don’t even understand is a good deed?’ Harry laughed once, without feeling. ‘That’s not the point – the point is, there’s nothing you’ve done that means you shouldn’t be able to do this. And if anyone tries to – I want to be there to help. They shouldn’t let me be a teacher, but they do,’ he added, with a desperate smile. ‘You’re just as qualified for it as I am.’

 

‘Merlin help them,’ Draco said, tilting his head up to hit against the wood of the bed post with an audible thud. ‘Two shitty teachers that end up fighting by Christmas.’

 

‘I’m not going to fight you,’ Harry told him, his face honest. ‘Unless you’re a massive dick about points.’

 

‘Potter, of course I’d be a massive dick about points,’ Draco tilted his head, meeting his eyes with a raised eyebrow. ‘It’s like you don’t understand the important parts of house rivalry.’

 

‘You’re supposed to be a teacher, not a Slytherin,’ Harry told him.

 

‘Slughorn is Head of House, and I’d be replacing him.’

 

‘Oh,’ Harry said. ‘Shit.’

 

Draco laughed, a low chuckle as he looked out of the window. ‘’Oh, shit’ indeed.’

 

Harry smiled, thunking his own head back against the wall. ‘Come on, what Slytherin doesn’t take the chance to be lord of the Slytherins?’

 

‘True,’ Draco mused, looking at him. ‘If I start now, they might manage a House and Quidditch Cup dynasty that lasts until I retire.’

 

‘No way in hell,’ Harry rebuked, shaking his head vigorously. ‘Gryffindor team’s got a good chance this year.’

 

‘Potter, they broke my arm.’

 

‘All’s fair in love and war,’ Harry shrugged, sniggering at Draco’s mock look of disgust.

 

 

* * *

 


	21. Heart

When Harry went to bed that night, he spent so long lying awake in a deep stare at the fabric of his four-poster bed covering that he watched the deep red and gold of the embroidery turn a black and almost silver in the glint of his moonlit window. Worrying his lip with his teeth, he almost missed having his full set of arms just to open his options to tossing and turning from left to right instead of glaring at the ceiling in between quick casts of a tempus charm.

 

Draco wasn’t a replacement, because he couldn’t replace Ron. But – was Ron even his friend anymore, anyway?

 

Ron didn’t answer his letter. So, by any right, that meant that Ron didn’t _want_ to answer his letter. And from that much it followed that Ron didn’t want to see him, either.

 

And if Ron didn’t want to see him, then – well. Hermione was probably spending most of her time at the Burrow, now, if not all of it, after spending so much of it with Harry himself and the wards, and the library, because it was a better option than home. Not visiting Ron for the foreseeable future – this optimistic future where Ron answered his letter, and everything was fine, and the owl had just gotten lost in a storm or Wales or something, that didn’t exist as much as Harry wanted it to – meant that he probably wasn’t going to see Hermione much either.

 

Could visiting him - ? Was that such a bad idea?

 

How do you walk into someone’s house, after they’ve lost so much, and act like what they wanted didn’t matter? When it had hurt so much to go just after the battle and over the summer, when Molly hadn’t seemed to be able to decide between hugging him or cleaning or just hiding herself in the corner to cry. When he’d barely seen glimpses of George, beyond the funeral service in which he’d held his back ramrod straight and disappeared again as soon as he was able, Charlie’s strong hand at his shoulder. And Ginny – well, Ginny.

 

Every time Harry thought about Ginny, his stomach twisted like a knife.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry picked over a dry triangle of toast at his writing desk at the window, tapping the crust against the worn china plate with a dull ring as he stared uncomprehending at the messy scrawl of a fifth year essay. When he heard Draco ease into his armchair with a rustle of cushions, he offered a tired nod, looking back at his toast only to frown at it.

 

‘You know, I’ve been thinking –‘

 

‘Hogwarts house elves can’t cook if their lives depended on it?’ Draco looked away from him, fishing at his side table for a book. Harry took a furtive glance around the living room, just in case there was a house elf hidden away in a corner who’d hear, take offence and start spitting in his mashed potatoes.

 

‘No,’ Harry wrinkled his nose, though privately conceding that the toast was a little bit on the wrong side of brown.

 

‘Handwriting quills aren’t actually the worst idea?’ Draco guessed again, propping the spine of his book on his thigh as one finger cracked the pages open at his bookmark.

 

‘Closer,’ Harry admitted, shrugging at his table full of paperwork. ‘Do you remember in third year when we did our Defence exam?’

 

Draco tilted his head. ‘Does trying to murder your students count as an exam, now?’

 

‘We’re not dead,’ Harry countered. ‘From that, anyway.’

 

Draco flapped a hand as if to concede his point, flopping his book open across his lap. ‘You want to put your students through a potentially deadly obstacle course. And I assume you want my help to prevent it being actually deadly.’

 

‘I wasn’t thinking anything that bad,’ Harry said, abandoning his toast and lying back in his desk chair. ‘More like, puzzle solving. You fight something, if you win you get a clue, that sort of thing.’

 

‘Like the triwizard tournament?’

 

Harry grimaced. ‘Actually, maybe not, then.’

 

Draco looked up, considering. ‘I didn’t mean it was a terrible idea.’

 

‘Sounds like one now,’ Harry shrugged, picking up a quill to spin it between his fingers. ‘I’ve also just remembered something from first year that doesn’t help, either.’

 

‘I don’t remember anything even slightly interesting from first year,’ Draco quirked one eyebrow. ‘Second year was when it all really kicked off. Remember duelling club? And, obviously, ‘enemies of the heir, beware’.’

 

‘First year definitely had its moments, at least for the three of us,’ Harry huffed a laugh through his nose, smiling. ‘Try giant evil chess. And poison.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘And a flying key thing, and –‘

 

‘Poison?’ He had Draco’s full attention now, furnished with a look that was interested laced with a guarded concern.

 

‘Snape,’ Harry answered, like it explained everything, just to see his forehead twist. ‘Duelling club was interesting, though.’

 

Draco gave him a sharp look, mouth threatening a small smile. ‘You mean, when you tried to get a snake to bite me?’

 

Harry laughed, scratching the back of his neck. ‘Would you believe me if I said I didn’t?’

 

‘Not for a second, Potter,’ Draco snorted. ‘Bloody thing had murder in its eyes.’

 

‘I was telling it not to, I promise,’ Harry said, hand over heart. ‘Took a lot of convincing, since it really took a dislike to you. I think it was the hair.’

 

‘I thought snakes were supposed to be intelligent creatures,’ Draco mused. ‘Anyone and their grandmother would realise if it was bad hair it was after, the obvious target was you.’

 

Harry made a pantomime of dragging his fringe back against his skull with his palm. ‘This is a good look, is it?’

 

‘It is on me,’ Draco replied, nose turned upwards.

 

‘That’s not what the snake said,’ Harry smiled.

 

‘Betrayed by my own kin.’

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry sat brushing the tiny thin hairs of his quill backwards and forwards with the nail of his thumb, splitting the plume into clumps and then re-joining them over and over as he stared unseeingly at his marking. Draco sat with his neck bent over his book, unaware of or maybe pointedly ignoring the internal turmoil that had been wracking Harry off and on since the night before.

 

It was Sunday afternoon, so at the Burrow they would have just finished a proper lunch. Harry had learned pretty early on that in the wizarding world there was no such thing as no post on Sundays, so he could kid himself that maybe Ron was sitting down at the fire to write him a letter or something. Maybe a howler, or just a note that said ‘fuck off’ in Ron’s messy, looping script.

 

Who was he kidding, though, at this point. Ron wasn’t going to write to him at all.

 

After a bloody miserable childhood with the Dursleys, and the car crash that wasn’t a car crash and – and losing Sirius – Harry only had a few people in the world left that he’d ever considered family. It wasn’t until they were all going through the pain of the funerals and wakes after the war, saying goodbye to so many people, having to come to terms with not ever seeing them again, that he’d realised that Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys were his family, more than the Dursleys ever had been.

 

He’d worried every second that he was intruding when they were burying Fred, but they’d never made him feel that way. Charlie had hugged Harry like he’d hugged Ron, like he was another brother, like they were all feeling the same loss.

 

And Draco was right that he’d acted like Ron’s opinion didn’t matter when he’d found that spell, and gone ahead with it, and never said a word to him.

 

He’d asked Hermione to lie for him, and he’d lied himself. Ron was right to not want him as a friend anymore. Or family.

 

Ron was probably never going to speak to him again, Harry repeated in his head. The thought made his chest hurt.

 

‘I’m going to go to the Burrow.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry hadn’t even realised that he’d forgotten to plan what he’d say until he was at the front door, scuffing his trainers on the worn down mat, one hand hovering over aging red paint.

 

Even from outside he could hear the buzz of conversation, a back and forth of at least five familiar voices, and he was sure he could even recognise the warmth of Mrs Weasley and the lilt of Fleur. His face heated with the intense feeling of intruding, making his stomach flip with it. He wasn’t invited, they probably didn’t want him there, he was intruding. It had only been a few months, maybe three, and he didn’t feel like he belonged anymore.

 

Swallowing hard, Harry rapped his knuckles gently across the door. The tapping was easily overwhelmed by the noise of the house. He dragged in a shaky breath, reaching down for any of that mythical Gryffindor courage he might have left, and knocked again, harder, letting his lungs empty with a nervous huff.

 

The noise inside dulled a little, and a feeling of sharp panic shot an electric line up his back as he realised that he’d probably see Mr or Mrs Weasley for the first time in months when they answered and he’d have to explain his arm and where he’d been and everything on their doorstep – until he heard Hermione call out in her distinct tone from barely a few feet inside.

 

Harry tried to give a sheepish smile when the door finally opened to reveal brown curly hair and a pretty face. Given Hermione’s expression, that turned quickly from surprised to sympathetic, he had more likely managed a look of abject terror.

 

‘Harry,’ Hermione smiled, reaching out with one arm to pull him into a quick hug and beyond the door frame with her voice low. ‘I’m so happy to see you.’

 

‘You too,’ Harry leant into her shoulder for a moment, before straightening up and trying to square his shoulders. His nervousness was betrayed though a squeak in his voice, and he winced. ‘I – erm, is – is Ron in?’

Hermione nodded, looking down at her hand, where she had a gentle grip on Harry’s robe. ‘He’s in the kitchen – I can try to –‘

 

Whatever she was going to suggest went unspoken as Mrs Weasley’s bright red hair and open face appeared from around the corner, and the panic shot through Harry again.

 

‘Harry Potter! And where on earth have you been!’ The short but formidable form of Molly Weasley shot towards him before he could remember how to work his tongue properly.

 

‘Hullo, Mrs Weasley –‘

 

‘Harry, how many times do I have to tell you – it’s Molly, you silly boy – let me look at you!’ Harry stumbled in the hallway, a little wide eyed and overwhelmed, as Molly seized him by both cheeks to get a good look at his face.  ‘Have they been keeping you too busy at the school? I should talk to Minerva – you know, it’s not good for her to scare you off with too much work –‘

 

‘You wanted to talk to Ron?’ Hermione interjected, a little desperately, with one hand still steadfast on his cloak. Harry nodded, suddenly and undividedly struck with the fear that Molly would try to touch his arm or his shoulder and he’d upset her after two seconds of being in her house.

 

‘Yeah, um – Molly, is Ron –‘

 

‘Of course, dear,’ Molly patted him on the cheek, letting her hands rest for a moment on his shoulders before letting go.

 

Her face changed for just a moment, flashing through something sad and profound, before fixing resolutely back to the motherly intensity Harry knew from her since he was eleven years old, seeing her for the first time on that King’s Cross platform. Something in his heart pulled sharply, and he felt a horrible guilt for what he’d inevitably have to tell her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to barge in or anything.’

 

‘Don’t be silly, Harry, sweetheart,’ Molly flapped her hands, stepping back to give him a long, measured look. ‘They haven’t been feeding you enough. You go talk to Ron and then we’ll heat up some leftovers and get a proper Sunday dinner in you.’

 

‘Oh, I’m okay,’ Harry replied sheepishly. ‘I’ll just – hi.’

 

Ron had taken that moment to appear in the doorway to the back of the house and the kitchen, first looking at Hermione before turning to Harry, newly released by his mother. Harry swallowed at the tired and blank expression on Ron’s face.

 

‘Hey,’ Ron replied, shrugging, before looking back at Hermione, propping one broad shoulder up on the frame.

 

Hermione looked once between them in a quick flash, tense. ‘We’ll go and make you some sandwiches, then,’ she declared, taking Molly by the shoulder. Harry wondered how much he’d missed, since he’d never seen Hermione act so comfortably in control around Molly’s famously well-meant domineering. He watched them both steer back towards the kitchen, gone with one last fast look over Hermione’s shoulder, until he was left in the hallway with Ron in silence only broken by the distant noise of a comfortable home.

 

‘Hi,’ Harry said again, swallowing hard.

 

Ron just looked at him, first straight in the eye, before flicking obviously to the shoulder Harry had covered by his heavy winter cloak. Harry swallowed again.

 

‘In here,’ Ron grunted, before loping off towards the room Molly kept as a quiet area to knit and read at the front of the house, a big gabled window looking over the fields beyond. Harry trailed behind, following Ron’s lead and dropping down into an armchair.

 

They sat in silence, Harry picking at his jeans and Ron staring beyond him.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry started, huffing a sigh. ‘I am. I’ve been a massive twat.’

 

Ron said nothing, shifting in his chair, looking downwards in a movement that could have been one short nod.

 

The silence stretched through again.

 

‘I –‘ Harry looked over the room, at the massive piles of handmade quilts and knitted blankets across lumpy furniture. ‘I didn’t want you to stop me doing it.’

 

Ron did nod then, but in comprehension more than understanding. He didn’t meet Harry’s eye.

 

‘I shouldn’t have asked Hermione to lie about it.’ Harry added, biting his lip.

 

Ron spoke then. ‘No, you shouldn’t.’

 

Harry winced at his voice, which was dull and a bit rough at the edge, like he hadn’t had much sleep. He nodded.

 

‘It would have been better if you’d known about it straight away. You shouldn’t have found out afterwards.’

 

‘I didn’t.’

 

Harry started. ‘What?’

 

‘I didn’t,’ Ron repeated, unimpressed. ‘You’re right, you shouldn’t have told ‘Mione to lie. She didn’t, though.’

 

Harry gaped for a second. ‘She told you?’

 

Ron nodded, curt, resting his elbows on his thighs. ‘’Course she did. She couldn’t sleep, ‘cus of what you were asking her to do. I found her crying about it.’

 

Harry felt the guilt and grief come over him like ice water. ‘I – why didn’t you say anything?’

 

‘What was I supposed to do, Harry?’ Ron stood up, then, jerking a hand towards him in an angry gesture, before huffing a defeated breath through his nose. ‘You’d still bloody well do it.’

 

Harry let his eyes close in a long blink, nodding.

 

‘What was I supposed to do,’ Ron repeated, and Harry looked up to see him meet his eyes, arms limply held at his sides and his face exhausted. ‘I couldn’t stop you. Hermione told me you were – she said you were out there all the time, talking to it –‘ one forceful swallow, ‘Malfoy. Whatever the - . She said we wouldn’t stop you even if I tried, and then she said bloody McGonagall was alright with it.’

 

Ron slumped back into his seat then, looking away, back out into the gardens beyond the window. ‘We’d just – we’d just lost Fred. And. You were going to –‘, he shrugged, one weak roll of his long torso, trying to meet Harry’s eyes then and only managing to look just past him. ‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ Ron grit his teeth just as Harry opened his mouth, the skin on his jaw bouncing with the muscle movement. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you should have. But – your arm.’

 

Ron slumped back in the chair. ‘If I’d tried, you’d still have done it. And we’d, you know. Stop talking. We’d just lost Fred,’ he repeated, catching Harry’s eyes then. ‘I couldn’t do it, mate.’

 

Harry opened his mouth, only to close it. Ron’s hands where gripping tight at the arms of the chair, knuckles clear in relief against his pale skin.

 

‘How are -?’ Harry asked, letting the ending hang. It was a stupid question, anyway, he berated himself.

 

Ron shrugged, relaxing his hands only to drop them in his lap. ‘We’re just – trying.’

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry repeated again, hoping it came across with all of the feeling he meant by it. ‘I didn’t want to add something.’

 

‘Mum’s going to fucking murder you,’ Ron acknowledged, with some weak humour.

 

Harry winced, flopping his hand over to his side where his cloak still covered his shoulder. ‘She doesn’t know yet?’

 

Ron’s face twisted a bit. ‘Don’t get on ‘Mione. She only told me.’

 

Harry threw a hand up in protest. ‘God no – I shouldn’t have asked her to do any of it. I needed her help,’ he admitted, ‘I dunno what she said, but I just couldn’t leave him out there, and she – she really saved both of us.’

 

Ron gave him a long look, turning to his shoulder. ‘It would have been easier if you had left it.’

 

Harry bristled at the words, and tried to swallow it. ‘Maybe.’ Ron watched his expression, sighing.

 

‘Yeah. You couldn’t.’

 

‘I couldn’t.’

 

 

 


	22. Guilt

‘I can explain it to her,’ Ron offered, apropos of a heavy silence between them. Harry could hear the bustling noise of his mother clanking around the kitchen, interspersed with the warm tones of female conversation from rooms away.

 

Harry started at the offer, jerking reflexively to look at his left shoulder. ‘I couldn’t – Ron,’ he tried, before pausing, trying to find the words. Ron looked at him with a softer face than ten minutes before, but the pale skin around his eyes held the noticeable cast of little sleep. ‘I did it. I did it because I meant to, and I should have to do everything else. All the –‘, Harry gave a vague gesture, ‘Explaining.’

 

Ron shrugged, slumping back into his chair a little, the right side of his mouth pulling down. ‘Maybe it’s not really for you, you know?’ He sighed. ‘It’s going to upset her and dad, you know it is.’

 

Harry twisted his face, something in his stomach hardening to a heavy brick, making him feel sick with it. ‘I could wait. Hermione helped with the arm thing in Berlin and everything. I don’t want to hurt anyone,’ he added. ‘More, I mean.’

 

Ron nodded, but he was still frowning. ‘They offered George some fake thing at St. Mungos,’ he said. ‘Mum said it didn’t make any difference to her.’

 

‘Is – how is he?’

 

Ron’s chin dropped a little. ‘I dunno, mate. He says he prefers not having the ear, anyway.’ An awkward cough, then a short, heavy silence. ‘Means he looks less like F-Fred.’

 

Harry watched Ron’s adam’s apple bounce, once then again as he swallowed heavily. Pain pricked in needles at the back of his own eyes. ‘Are you – how are you?’

 

Ron shrugged, a jerking movement that had a forced casualness that directly contradicted his tight face and the avoidance of his eyes. ‘M’fine. The, er,’ he coughed, forcefully. ‘How’s the school?’

 

‘It’s better,’ Harry offered, slumping back in his chair and turning away, feeling embarrassed. ‘Neville and Hermione really made all the difference with the repairs and stuff. It looks – it looks like when we started.’

 

Ron nodded, still keeping his eyes on the window. ‘Classes alright?’

 

‘Great,’ Harry said, honestly, then caught himself a bit with guilt. ‘They don’t care much that I’m all wonky now or anything,’ he forced a small smile. ‘The Gryffindor Quidditch team have a proper go at the cup this year, I think.’

 

Ron seemed to relax a bit then. ‘Ginny said the Slytherins were murder when we weren’t there. Suppose they can’t cheat so much now.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Harry agreed, smile growing. ‘Practices are going brilliant. Only had a couple of broken bones,’ he gave a laugh. ‘Henry the Seeker smacked right into Draco last week, but –‘

 

Harry swallowed, catching himself. Ron huffed a little humourless laugh through his nose.

 

‘I know he’s there, mate.’

 

Harry nodded. ‘He’s – not that much of a prick. Anymore.’

 

‘’Mione’s not sure,’ Ron said. Harry felt himself bristle a little bit at the insult, stupidly. ‘She says he’s polite enough.’

 

Harry let the room lapse a little bit into silence again as he thought. ‘I’d still have done it if he wasn’t,’ he concluded eventually. ‘But he’s – he’s not different, but he is,’ he said, making a face. ‘He’s still Malfoy. But he’s been my friend.’

 

‘I’m not going to pretend that makes sense, mate,’ Ron told him. He jerked one shoulder. ‘Was he really stuck in a statue the whole time?’

 

‘Since the battle. He said he couldn’t move, or sleep.’

 

Ron considered that for a moment. ‘That would stop me being a prick.’

 

‘It wasn’t supposed to be a punishment, Ron,’ Harry tried to frown, but snorted a laugh in spite of himself.

 

‘You don’t know,’ Ron countered, rubbing his palm on his thigh. ‘One of those Death Eaters might have been really sick of him.’

 

‘Yeah, I’d say he was, since he cursed him.’

 

‘No, mate, I mean. He was probably whingeing about his hair all the time.’

 

‘Ron –‘

 

Ron held his hands up in defence, a small smile on his face. ‘Just saying. Statues don’t complain.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

When Harry’s feet landed back on solid ground outside the main gateway of the school, the familiar uneasy feeling in his stomach tore into a painful bile rising in his throat when he saw who was waiting near the pillar.

 

Obnoxiously large, bright blonde curls sat primly on top of Rita Skeeter’s head, her painted mouth spreading quickly into a zealous smirk when she caught her eye on Harry’s appearing form. Harry jerked back in surprise and disgust as the thin, green leather shrouded woman advanced on him with fervour.  ‘Well, look who it is, our dear mister Potter!’

 

Harry almost bared his teeth at her, face twisting in disgust as he tried to flank and make a run for beyond the gates and safety. Minerva wouldn’t let Skeeter on school property if she were on fire and the fire itself was on fire, so he just had to make it to –

 

One bejewelled claw grabbed out at him, and he jerked away, swearing. ‘I’m not going to speak to you – get off –‘

 

She sneered at him back, and grabbed again. Harry was too slow, and crimson red nails snagged at his cloak. He jerked back, slapped at it, but it was too late.

 

His cloak pulled back, just far enough. She’d seen the sleeve, how it was pinned up against his shoulder, before he’d had a chance to stop her.

 

‘Well,’ she repeated, pulling her hand back to hold it aloft, elbow bent tight at her waist. She curled her disgusting nails through the air like a cat, while Harry pulled his cloak back to his chest, horrified. ‘Looks like those little brats know a good rumour when they hear one.’

 

‘Don’t bother,’ Harry tried, pulling away from her, towards the school. He felt sick to his core. ‘Try anything, and I’ll tell them about you. Still not registered yet?’

 

Skeeter’s eyes narrowed, and her nails flashed again. ‘Oh, sweet little Harry. I’m not the only one to hear about this.’ She smiled at him, bright white teeth flashing. ‘Wouldn’t you rather it was dear old me who published it? Someone else might not be so –‘, she tapped a fingertip to her lip. ‘Flattering.’

 

Harry grit his teeth. He just wanted to run away, back home, back to his rooms. He knew he’d lost. ‘You take it too far, and you’ll regret it,’ he tried, balling his hand into a fist. She just kept smiling.

 

‘Our tragic hero Harry Potter loses a limb for peace,’ she purred at him, reaching into her crocodile skin handbag at her side. ‘Rumours also tell me there might still be a big bad old Death Eater in the castle,’ she added, twirling a quill. ‘Might I get a quote on how you plan to protect the children?’

 

Harry knew it was between running and swinging at her, then, and fled.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Draco started pacing in front of the fireplace after he told him, shoulders stiff and one hand shoved into his pocket. ‘She’s right. The students knew, even before you told them.’

 

‘Ron’s mum doesn’t,’ Harry said, collapsing into himself on his arm chair. ‘I’ll owl him so he knows what’s coming. I wanted to – I said I’d go down when I had the replacement ready, so it didn’t seem so – bad,’ he finished weakly. ‘Skeeter – she’s probably as bad as it gets.’

 

‘Did she say when?’

 

Harry shrugged. ‘Dunno. Probably tomorrow. She’s not going to let someone else beat her to it.’

 

‘No,’ Draco agreed. His pacing stopped and changed into him standing at the window, back to the room and Harry.

 

‘Fuck,’ Harry added, weakly.

 

Draco didn’t turn around, but Harry saw one shoulder jerk. ‘I expected this.’

 

‘Skeeter?’

 

‘Maybe. Something like her.’ He shrugged again, turning so Harry could see half his face. ‘Still think this is a good idea?’ His mouth was twisted into something sardonic, but his eyes were flat.

 

‘I didn’t want to tell Molly, when I was at the Burrow. Because I was scared,’ Harry admitted. ‘I didn’t want to upset her. But it’s happened, either way. Even with a spelled arm to replace it, it’s still gone,’ he shrugged his right shoulder.

 

‘Me being at the castle isn’t going to help things. At all.’

 

Harry huffed a breath through his nose. ‘I used to get something new written about me every week back in school. It was even Skeeter most of the time. Well, you know,’ he added as an afterthought, and Draco had the decency to look down for a second. ‘They say stuff about you that’s not true, and the people who matter don’t believe it anyway. Most of the time.’

 

‘Maybe, when it’s just about who Harry Potter is dating and which player might join the Cannons,’ Draco huffed. ‘This is about children being supervised by Death Eaters.’

 

‘You’re not a –‘

 

‘Potter, I swear to Circe –‘

 

Harry stood up, jerking over to take his arm below the elbow, pull him around so he could see more than part of his face. ‘Do you really think you are?’

 

Draco looked down, at where Harry’s hand gripped him around the forearm. ‘You’re touching it, and you don’t think it means anything?’

 

Harry loosened his fingers a little bit, letting the shirt fabric slide through his grip. ‘I saw you, in sixth year. I saw you crying.’

 

Draco wrenched his arm free, pulled away. ‘What you saw doesn’t mean anything. I was exhausted, with that fucking – the cabinet, after everything went wrong. I cast _crucio_ on you –‘

 

‘I nearly killed you,’ Harry shot back, dropping his hand to his hip, clenching it. ‘You’re going to tell me you were happy to get that?’ He jerked his head towards Draco’s arm, as Draco twitched his fingers nervously open and closed.

 

‘No, I wasn’t fucking happy,’ Draco replied, venomous. ‘It fucking hurt. But I had to do it, and I willingly did it. It wouldn’t have fucking taken if I hadn’t.’

 

‘And what would have happened if you’d refused?’

 

Draco let out a harsh barking laugh, stepping further away across the room. ‘We’re not all you! My father was his servant, he got on his knees to ask for it – you don’t _refuse_ the Dark Lord, you’re just happy he doesn’t let his big fucking snake eat you.’

 

‘You had a choice when it mattered,’ Harry ploughed onwards. ‘You didn’t kill anyone.’

 

‘Is that how you judge this?’ Draco considered him, voice leaking incredulity. ‘That’s why I’m here, not outside?’

 

‘That’s not what we’re talking about –‘

 

‘That’s the line, then. I spent an entire year trying to, I used unforgivables, I _indirectly_ caused his death, but because I didn’t actually do it –‘

 

‘Don’t do that –‘

 

‘Don’t do what? Talk about your bloody Dumbledore?’

 

‘Don’t fucking make it about him.’ Harry’s voice cracked, and he looked away, focussed on clenching his nails hard into his palm until it stung.

 

‘I don’t see how it isn’t,’ Draco countered, mockingly casual in tone. ‘It seems like the only reason I’m not a Death Eater to you, and the only reason you broke the curse on me,’ he gestured jarringly towards the window behind Harry and his voice faltered a little, ‘is because I didn’t kill Dumbledore. I just caused his death.’

 

‘No, you didn’t.’ Harry jerked his chin.

 

‘Of course I fucking did –‘

 

No. You. Didn’t.’ Harry breathed hard through his nose. His voice grated out, and it made Draco falter.

 

‘What?’

 

Harry closed his eyes in a long blink, and tried to relax his hand. ‘You didn’t kill him, because he was already dying. Snape knew. They decided to do that together. To save you.’

 

Draco’s mouth opened, then closed again. Harry didn’t notice – memories of the cave were flooding up again, bashing against the barrier in his mind. Bile started building at the back of his throat.

 

‘I –‘

 

‘I watched you,’ Harry cut him off, curtly. ‘You couldn’t do it. I didn’t – I didn’t break the curse because you didn’t kill him. I didn’t do it because I didn’t know you’d done awful things – I’ve done things too, that I can’t forget.’

 

Draco met his gaze, watched him as he focussed on breathing, swallowing back the guilt. ‘It was a war,’ he offered awkwardly, as tears started building in Harry’s eyes.

 

Harry laughed just once, lifting his wrist to scrape at one eye. ‘That’s exactly my fucking point.’

 

Draco snorted. He crossed his arms sharply across his chest, turning away a little. ‘Being here – it’s made it too easy to forget that this is all I’m ever going to be,’ he punctuated with a jerk of his left elbow.

 

‘You could always chop it off,’ Harry said thickly.

 

Draco laughed like it was forced from him, dropping his chin down towards his chest. ‘I don’t know how to feel half of the fucking time. Guilt, or relief, or what.’

 

‘Tired,’ Harry added. He huffed a sigh, wiping his cheek again. ‘Are you happy here?’

 

Draco jerked back a little. ‘Yes,’ he answered, though he looked a bit pained.

 

‘Is there anything that Rita Skeeter can say that’s going to stop you being happy here?’

 

Draco, to his credit, did seem to very carefully consider the question. For a moment Harry let himself wonder what might be possibly meeting that criteria. ‘I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s my opinion on it that’s the issue.’

 

Harry sighed, understanding. ‘There’s probably going to be complaints,’ he admitted. ‘She’ll put it in the worst fucking way possible.’

 

‘You’re saying that like she even has to try,’ Draco countered. He squeezed his crossed arms very tight across his chest, biceps flexing through the fabric of his shirt. ‘She doesn’t even have to pretend I’m dangerous, because your arm is gone.’

 

Harry looked at his shoulder on reflex. ‘Is it too late to make up a story about it?’

 

‘Why bother?’ Draco shrugged. ‘The real story is very much within your realm of behaviour. Heroic and self-sacrificing. And moronic.’

 

Harry had the unexpected sensation of an oddly excited shiver going through him when he saw Draco’s face belatedly light up with an idea. ‘What?’

 

‘Is Granger particularly busy at the moment?’

 

‘She’s doing bits and pieces for the Ministry, I think,’ Harry said slowly. ‘Nothing full time. Why?’

 

‘Sell it,’ Draco pronounced. ‘I can’t write it, for obvious reasons, and no doubt they’ll say I have you under lock and key and some kind of sex slave if you do,’ Draco’s eyebrow waggled a little and Harry flushed. ‘But Granger both took part and has a respectable reputation.’

 

Harry bit his lip, thinking. ‘Luna’s dad does owe me a favour.’

 

Draco made a face. ‘Desperate times.’

 

Harry felt his back release slowly from painful tension. ‘Do you really think it would work?’

 

‘It’s more Gryffindor than doing nothing. And underhanded enough to be slightly Slytherin.’

 

Harry chuckled. ‘Perfect, then. Hermione might not be impressed by being asked to write a tell-all much, but it works.’

 

‘She’ll be a reliable source directly contradicting whatever Skeeter comes up with, so no doubt it’ll do that harpy some damage to her reputation with wizarding Britain’s gossipy old ladies.’

 

‘Then if ‘Mione ever wants to, she can go into magazine writing,’ Harry snorted. ‘I’ll write to her and ask. And warn Ron about it.’

 

* * *

 

 

 


	23. Ink

Harry counted seven Daily Prophets hitting the benches at breakfast, not including the school faculty, who he at least was confident knew the real story behind his arm and Draco’s return; and believed it, if only because it had been told to them by the Headmistress, withering stare included.

 

Draco had forgone eating over an over-full cup of black coffee, shoulders tight under uncharacteristically unassuming black robes that matched Harry’s own. He’d even left off the decoration of a ludicrously expensive tie, or those ridiculous collar tips, and Harry wondered if he expected a Prophet photographer to bust into the school at any second and wanted to look appropriately sombre just in case.

 

To her credit, when Professor Sprout slid over her copy of the paper once the owls had clattered noisily away from the head table, she did so with the expression of deep sympathy.

 

‘Mutilated,’ Harry grunted, allowing himself one quick glance before turning back to his tea, fingers tightening on the mug. ‘It’s not like I’ve got half a face left or anything.’

 

Draco didn’t reply, dropping his own coffee back to the table with the dull clunk of crockery. He flapped the paper down onto his empty plate, and sighed.

 

Harry tried to avoid looking up across the hall of students. ‘It’s what we expected, right?’

 

Draco shook his head. ‘Turns out, no. Not entirely.’

 

He gestured to the front page. Under a particularly doctored photograph of Harry, in which his black hair was flowing artfully in the wind along with his cape, was the thick black typeface of Skeeter’s sensationalist article headline. Next to Draco’s thumb, was the smaller, spikier subheading:

 

 **‘HARRY’S ILLICIT AFFAIR WITH DEATH EATER, MALFOY HEIR’**.

 

Harry stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded.

 

‘I should have known not to joke about it,’ Draco offered contemptuously, shoving the newspaper further across the breakfast table like it was poisonous.

 

‘What the hell is she even talking about?’ Harry said, eyebrows furrowed. ‘I am actually missing an arm – not that it makes it excusable, but.’ He flapped his hand. ‘That’s just made up!’

 

Draco raised one eyebrow at him. ‘You’re surprised she’s fabricating stories?’

 

‘’Illicit affair’,’ Harry continued, agitated. ‘Who even says things like that? Is that not for when someone’s married? It’s just stupid.’

 

‘Now you’re just sounding like you’re protesting too much,’ Draco observed, one corner of his mouth twisting upwards. He slumped back a little in his chair. ‘I wonder how your Weasley clan is going to like this one. Not enough I’ve taken your arm off,’ he flapped a hand at Harry’s empty left shoulder, with a mockingly serious expression. ‘Now a Death Eater’s also seen you with your pants off. Allegedly.’

 

Harry bit the inside of his lip, deciding not to point out the variable truth of both statements, and willed himself not to flush. ‘Ron will tell them it’s stupid,’ he said, more to persuade himself than anything.

 

‘Then we’ll have to hope he’s convincing,’ Draco said, looking back at the front page with scorn still on his face. ‘I wonder, though. Even if Granger gives the right twist on this. It’s a lot easier to change the narrative on the former than the latter.’

 

‘All we have to do is say we’re not –‘ Harry winced a little. ‘You know.’

 

Draco gave him an appraising look. ‘You’re joking, surely.’

 

‘Well, we’re not,’ Harry said, defensive. He could feel the flush start to build on a warm line of his cheeks. ‘Doing that,’ he finished lamely.

 

‘A wonder in itself, since you’re so attractively articulate,’ Draco gave him a humoured look. ‘I really doubt that denying a secret relationship has ever actually convinced anyone. Possibly in the history of wizard kind.’

 

‘What do we do, then?’

 

Draco shrugged, looking back to the newspaper. ‘You tell the people that matter, then wait for it to blow over.’ He winced a little, swirling the coffee in his cup. ‘Let’s hope it does.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Harry agreed, with what came out more than a bit weak in faith.

 

If Draco noticed the lack of feeling, he didn’t comment. ‘No doubt your she-weasel will be glad to hear it.’

 

Harry’s back shot through with an icy feeling at that. He opened his mouth to comment, or contradict or something, but he couldn’t find the words for it, or what he wanted to say. ‘Yeah,’ he offered quietly, instead.

 

Draco turned back to his cooling coffee, newspaper solidly pushed away across the oak table, and the sharp profile moved away from Harry as Pomona Sprout caught him in conversation and the one he’d had with Harry was officially ended.

 

Harry poured more dark amber tea into his mug, and sat pensively letting it warm his palm.

 

Honestly, Mrs Weasley and everyone – and Ginny, they’d all know it was just stupid gossip and rumours when they read it, surely. It’s not like Harry had ever – he’d never even thought of a man that way, even. And Draco was – he was Draco Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy being his friend now on its own was probably pretty unbelievable anyway.

 

It was obvious it wasn’t true, really. Nobody would believe it. Not the students, definitely.

 

Harry chanced a look across the hall then, and realised near a third of all the kids in the hall were looking right at him. More than a few nudged and whispered to each other as he shot a worried glance across the benches.

 

‘Brilliant,’ Harry muttered to himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry’s mood took a turn from bad to worse over the morning as he set into the challenge of an engaging lesson to Sixth years about dementors, a task that was difficult at best on a good day and almost impossible when the class was every now and then interrupted by the smallest whispers and giggling that set him on edge every time his back was turned.

 

‘So since we’ve already been working on our patronuses, you’ll know by now the best way to protect yourself from a dementor if you see it,’ Harry said, spelling the incantation onto the large old blackboard at the front of the room for reference. ‘Can anyone tell me why the patronus works to protect you against dementors?’

 

Harry was very grateful to see Penny Haltwork’s slim forearm appear in the air. He rubbed at his back, nodding to her.

 

‘Because they can’t feed on it, even though it’s your happiest thought,’ Penny offered, tapping her quill nervously on her parchment. Harry offered her a quick smile.

 

‘Yeah, exactly. It’s really hard to produce a patronus as a form, but even as a noncorporeal shape it’s still a shield that stops them reaching you. Erm, five points to Gryffindor. So – ‘

 

Harry paused on his motion of turning back to the board, wand raised. At the back of the room, where Draco had been quietly sitting reading Harry’s notes for the term, Harry instead saw him stood next to one of the desks of Slytherins in the back corner. He had paper crumpled in one hand, and a student was glaring daggers at him. ‘Everything alright?’

 

‘Absolutely,’ Draco offered back, paper quickly slipped into his cloak. ‘Isn’t it, Errikson?’

 

Harry watched as the tall dark-haired student seemed to pause in thought, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek, before deciding to smirk back at Draco stood a bit behind him. ‘’Course, _Professor_ ,’ he offered with a shrug.

 

Harry and Draco both waited a beat, meeting eyes across the room. Draco was the first to turn away, heading back to his seat. Harry tried to shake the uneasy feeling, and continued with the lesson.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

One excitable lesson on _lumos_ for the first years later, and Harry was feeling the familiar drag of a long day of lots to do but nothing much interesting. He kicked his heels up onto the big old chest beside his desk, unwrapping his sandwich as he looked across at Draco in the armchair he’d dragged from the back office. ‘What was that about, this morning?’

 

Draco paused in the middle of picking at the cucumbers in his tuna sandwich. ‘It wasn’t anything particularly original. Just passing notes.’

 

Harry huffed through his nose. ‘It’s not my fault that lectures are boring. They’re boring for us too.’

 

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Draco offered, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘You can be sure I’ll mention when it’s anything to write home about.’

 

‘Did you at least find out who’s going out with Stephanie McColl? It’s been bothering me since last week.’

 

Draco snorted. ‘It seems like Mr Anchon is in the running. In which case, she’s severely lacking in taste.’

 

‘His hair isn’t that bad,’ Harry protested around his cheese and pickle.

 

‘And you would know, would you?’ Draco shot him a scornful glance at the mess of black on his head, and Harry patted it down reflexively.

 

‘What was in the note, anyway?’

 

Draco broke eye contact, looking at the blackboard instead when he shrugged, and Harry had spent long enough with him now to know that he was avoiding the answer. ‘Nothing interesting.’

 

Harry wrinkled his nose. ‘Can I see it?’

 

Draco tilted his head back, sighing. He abandoned the remains of his sandwich on top of Harry’s half-finished marking. ‘You don’t need to. It’s just stupid children.’

 

‘They’re only a couple of years younger than us,’ Harry rubbed the back of his neck. ‘What is it? Death Eater stuff? Me with a penis for an arm?’

 

Draco huffed a laugh in spite of himself. ‘Potter, that second one would be getting framed for my bedroom wall.’

 

‘You’re avoiding it still,’ Harry pointed out, holding out his hand.

 

Draco looked at his outstretched fingers for a moment, his own hand reaching to rest on top of the pocket in his robe. He sighed, pulling out a crumpled sheet of parchment and surrendering it. ‘It’s an incredibly crude drawing of us having sex. I wanted to spare you the insult of the size of your penis.’

 

Harry barely pulled back his hand with the offending paper, letting it clunk down instead to the surface of his desk. ‘Oh.’

 

Draco made a face. ‘It’s Slytherins. And that’s coming from me. They’ll get over it.’

 

Harry uncrumpled the parchment on his leg. True to report, it was a very poorly done sketch only really rendered understandable by obnoxious labelling and the addition of Harry’s black hair and glasses. His stomach churned a bit, and he screwed it up again to drop it into the bin by his feet.

 

‘You don’t need to protect me from that,’ he began, still looking down.

 

‘I don’t? You seem particularly bothered right now.’

 

Harry’s head shot up. ‘I’m not – it’s not – I’m not bothered.’

 

Draco just gave him a long look.

 

‘I’m not bothered,’ Harry repeated, defensive.

 

‘It’s fine, Potter,’ Draco offered, but his face was growing more guarded. ‘They’re not doing it because they think it’s true, however offensive you find it.’

 

‘I’m not worried they think I’m – I don’t care what they think about it,’ Harry swallowed. ‘It’s not – _offensive_.’

 

Draco was unconvinced. ‘So right now you’re just insulted by the small penis?’

 

Harry flapped his hand. ‘No, I’m not. I’m honestly not. They can draw whatever they want, even – that. I don’t care.’

 

Draco ran a hand over his hair, sitting back. ‘You’re not offended, but you can’t even say it.’

 

‘Say what,’ Harry answered lamely.

 

‘Sex, Potter. Us having sex.’

 

Harry flushed, full force. He turned his chin away, breathing heavily once through his nose as if it would quell the pinkish glow he could feel heating up across his cheeks. ‘Just because I didn’t say it doesn’t mean I’m offended,’ he countered gruffly.

 

‘Oh,’ Draco offered.

 

Harry pulled at the back of his neck, rubbing at the muscles at the base where it met his back. ‘What does ‘oh’ mean?’

 

‘It means oh, you’re not offended. You’re embarrassed.’ Draco tapped one long finger along the arm of his chair. ‘Well. I apologise.’

 

‘Could you try to sound a bit less smug?’

 

‘I could try,’ Draco said, and shot him a smirk with that newly familiar edge of good natured intention. ‘I won’t, though.’

 

‘Fuck off, Malfoy.’

 

‘’Fuck off’, or perhaps ‘fuck me’?’

 

The ball of greaseproof paper containing tuna sandwich remains that Harry threw at Draco did nothing to quell the throaty laugh that he gave seeing Harry’s face growing an even darker crimson.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry collapsed heavily into his living room armchair, belatedly wincing at the creak of his weight landing on furniture that was probably almost as old as some of the suits of armour in the hallway outside.

 

‘Do old wizards wear those traditional robes just so nobody can see they’re always wearing pyjamas underneath?’

 

Draco snorted from the coat rack, where he was carefully hanging his new black overcoat. ‘Potter, you’re showing your naivety. Most of the time you’re lucky if they’re wearing anything.’

 

‘Well, that’s disgusting,’ Harry confirmed, picking at his collar buttons. ‘If that’s a pureblood tradition, maybe I was better off muggle-born. Well – you know what I mean.’

 

Draco sat down in his armchair, spelling the hearth to life. He gave Harry a considering look. ‘I would have thought you’d wish you’d been brought up in this.’

 

‘Maybe.’ Harry rubbed his forearm along the arm of his chair, pushing the sleeve of his shirt up. ‘I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t have been me, if I had.’

 

‘Would be being more like me be that painful?’

 

‘You mean being a massive tosser?’ Harry grinned, wrinkling his nose.

 

‘Knowing what’s going on half of the time, for a start,’ Draco answered, gamely glaring back.

 

Harry nodded at that. ‘Would help,’ he admitted, smiling. ‘But then stuff like dragons and unicorns wouldn’t have been a weird surprise.’

 

Draco made a face, like he couldn’t sympathise. ‘It’s hardly worth the trade. Not that I could say being ignorant has stopped you,’ he shrugged.

 

Harry took a long moment to consider it. ‘Do you know much about muggles?’

 

‘No more than I care to,’ Draco replied offhandedly, pouring a short glass of port with the movement of his wand.

 

‘Like what?’ Harry pressed.

 

Draco flapped a non-committal hand. ‘Cars and tefelones and so on. Healers without magic. It all seems very difficult.’

 

Harry nodded, letting the correction go unspoken like he knew Hermione wouldn’t if she were there. ‘What do you think I don’t know about the magical world?’

 

Draco gave him a long considering look, floating his glass into his hand and swirling it, pouring Harry his own. ‘You know, I’m not sure. You go to the bank fine, and you’re vaguely dressed.’ He tapped a finger to his bottom lip, ignoring Harry making a face. ‘There’s probably a dozen small facts of wizarding history. But I’d be happier not knowing them either.’

 

‘Not from Hogwarts: A History. Hermione read me that thing at least twice.’ Harry opened his mouth, pausing for a second. ‘There’s not a lot of wizards in Britain, compared to muggles.’

 

‘Even fewer purebloods,’ Draco mused, then caught himself.

 

‘With purebloods, do you have things like – betrothals and family alliances and stuff?’

 

Draco raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you asking if I have a secret fiancée?’

 

‘Kind of,’ Harry shrugged.

 

‘Merlin, no,’ Draco laughed. ‘Does Weasley?’

 

‘Well, no,’ Harry said, sheepishly. ‘But his parents were always a bit different from your lot.’

 

‘My lot, the evil ones,’ Draco clarified, wryly. ‘I’ll happily admit some parts were a bit – dated, but my family wouldn’t have signed me off without asking.’

 

‘I always thought it was Pansy or something,’ Harry admitted, looking down into his glass.

 

‘She would be so lucky,’ Draco snorted.

 

‘Alright, fine, no secret betrothals,’ Harry shrugged, smiling. ‘I’m now wiser.’

 

‘Are you worried this rumour will affect your marriage prospects?’ Draco’s tone was teasing, but he was fidgeting with his glass on the arm of his chair. ‘Wouldn’t want to besmirch the Potter reputation.’

 

‘What reputation?’ Harry shrugged. ‘Since fourth year according to Skeeter I’ve been halfway around the country.’

 

‘Never a bloke, though,’ Draco winked. Privately Harry knew it was in part just to illicit the immediate red glow that grew on his face. ‘You never know, the witches of Britain might find it intriguing.’

 

‘You saying I’m not intriguing enough by myself?’

 

‘Sensitive and damaged, maybe,’ Draco conceded, nodding to Harry’s arm. ‘All that rubbish about you and Granger was probably interesting enough. But you can’t beat a Death Eater for a true bad boy.’

 

Harry groaned emphatically.

 

‘Am I wrong?’

 

‘Yeah, it’s just inherently wrong to use the term ‘bad boy’ generally, I think.’

 

‘Stop trying to detract from the point.’

 

Harry shrugged one shoulder, smiling. ‘I think you are wrong, anyway.’

 

‘How so?’

 

‘Who’d want to date me if you’re – my ex?’ Harry asked falteringly, swallowing. ‘That’s just scary. They’d be worried you’d show up in the night.’

 

‘And what, hex you through the window?’

 

‘Exactly,’ Harry said emphatically. ‘Burn all my garden plants, that sort of stuff.’

 

Draco let his smile grow into some sort of threatening grin. ‘Well. You’re not wrong.’

 

‘Yeah, see,’ Harry gestured to him. ‘That’s terrifying. Nobody’s getting in the way of that.’

 

Draco nodded as if Harry had made a particularly flattering point. ‘It might be a problem generally, I can see it. Though I doubt Weasley’s sister would be that scared of being murdered in the night.’

 

Harry winced at the familiar feeling of unpleasant guilt he got every time Ginny was mentioned. ‘I’m not – yeah, I don’t think that’s a thing.’

 

‘You’d find people our age more scared of being at the end of her wand than mine,’ Draco continued, pensive. He then wrinkled his nose, and Harry knew he’d remembered one of her particularly forceful bat-bogeys.

 

‘Me, for one,’ Harry said with raised eyebrows. He finished off his drink, looking down at the empty glass balanced on his thigh. ‘I suppose I should hope she’ll feel too sorry for me about the arm.’

 

Draco watched him, maybe misreading his pensiveness. ‘I doubt she’ll be that bothered by it,’ he offered, a little awkwardly. ‘Given what the Weasleys look like, I imagine they’re sympathetic about things like that.’

 

‘I, erm.’ Harry cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think it matters, since. I’m not – I don’t want to date her. Again.’

 

They sat in silence for a few moments, until Draco gamely got up and refilled Harry’s drink, then his own. ‘Does she know?’

 

‘Yeah, yes,’ Harry offered quickly, remembering Draco’s reaction when he found out about Ron. ‘I mean, I told her, anyway. I think she might have thought I’d change my mind.’

 

Draco nodded, as if that made sense. Harry was man enough to admit to himself that he wasn’t that good at emotional intelligence, and maybe it did. ‘Don’t worry, Potter,’ he said offhand. ‘There’s very few people who’ll believe a stupid rumour like that one.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Harry nodded.

 

‘I’m simply too good looking for you.’

 

‘Hey,’ Harry protested, smiling. ‘Are you saying I’m ugly?’

 

‘No,’ Draco considered it. ‘I’m just extremely handsome.’

 

‘You’re extremely delusional,’ Harry countered, sipping his drink.

 

Draco gave him a long look. ‘I don’t think I need to be your ex to hex you through a window.’

 

 

 

* * *

 


	24. Copper

Harry waited outside the alcove that framed the long, twisting staircase that lead to the Headmistress’ office, every now and then eyeing the dark, mottled gargoyle statue that guarded it.

 

He started wondering if maybe the thing was enchanted, and Minerva could see what he was doing through it, when the regular sound of light footfall down the tower built steadily in volume until Draco’s bright blond head appeared around the corner.

 

‘I told you, you didn’t have to lurk outside like a murderer,’ Draco rolled his eyes at him, adjusting his robes and moving over to where Harry was pushing off from leaning against the cold stone wall.

 

‘Everyone needs a hobby,’ Harry joked, shooting one last suspicious glance at the statue. ‘I didn’t want to get in the way.’

 

‘Merlin forbid you do your NEWTs too, and become an actually qualified teacher,’ Draco said as they headed down the corridor towards the main staircases.

 

Harry shrugged, a languid movement of one shoulder. ‘Potions is more technical, I suppose. In Defence I just have to be able to point my wand at things.’

 

‘I’m using that as evidence you know my subject is more difficult than yours,’ Draco told him. ‘And therefore better.’

 

‘Your subject?’ Harry smiled.

 

Draco huffed. ‘Well, I’m not doing the bloody things for fun, am I.’

 

Harry let his palm glide down the worn stone of the rail as they descended the first-floor staircase. ‘Just don’t start sabotaging my Quidditch team in the name of Slytherin just yet. We’ve had too many broken bones already.’

 

‘ _Your_ Quidditch team?’ Draco replied, teasing. ‘Poor Potter, you’re an old man now. You’ve already been replaced by a newer, clumsier Seeker.’

 

Harry gamely tried to look offended. ‘They’re not that bad. We might actually win this year.’

 

‘Maybe,’ Draco offered charitably. They kept in quiet step with each other as they headed towards the front courtyard, where students were making the most of the fresh Wednesday afternoon before dinner started.

 

Harry pulled his cloak tighter against the sharper bite of cold in the air, winter beginning to come in over the Scottish landscape. He tried to pretend he didn’t notice the group of older students, a mix of Slytherins and Ravenclaws gathered on the stonework, as they sniggered amongst themselves. He’d spent long enough as the topic of rumour to think too much about whether it was about him.

 

‘Did she say when you’d be doing the exams?’

 

‘Privately, same day as the students,’ Draco told him, slipping his hands into cloak pockets. ‘She gave me the impression that the Ministry aren’t too happy about it.’

 

Harry huffed, frowning but unsurprised. ‘You’ll be a great professor, so they’ll just have to get over it.’

 

‘I still have no idea what evidence you’re working on for that.’

 

‘Gut feeling,’ Harry smiled. He hunched his shoulders up a little against the wind as they crossed onto the open grassland of the castle lawn.

 

‘Of course,’ Draco said, sarcastic. ‘Far be it from me to doubt the great Harry Potter’s gut.’

 

‘Exactly,’ Harry nodded. They slowed to a stop as the grass tipped downwards, a sharper slope towards the shingle of the lake edge. Few of the students wandered that far out in the cold, and the scenery was set to the backdrop of far away laughter and chatter.

 

‘Last chance to back out now,’ Draco said lowly, in a voice that was just on the edge of soft. Harry glanced up at him, saw him gazing out across the vast expanse of dark water that hid so much of Hogwart’s magical aquatic life.

 

‘It isn’t,’ Harry told him, even though he knew Draco was mostly talking to himself. ‘If you decide you hate it, I’m not going to –‘ he paused, looking for the words. ‘Tie you down to it or anything.’

 

Draco’s mouth twisted as he glanced back. ‘I think we’re the subject of enough rumours without adding restraints.’

 

Harry shot him a look, resolutely ploughing onwards. ‘You can go open up a potions shop, or hide in a cave or whatever. Whenever you like.’

 

‘Apothecary,’ Draco corrected.

 

‘Whatever,’ Harry smiled.

 

‘Do you really think I could compete with Pippins in Diagon Alley? You seem have a lot of confidence in me, Potter,’ Draco said seriously, and Harry smacked him lightly on the arm.

 

‘You’re completely ignoring my point,’ he protested.

 

‘Yes, I get it. I can run off like a thief in the night whenever I want.’

 

‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t,’ Harry admitted, pulling himself inwards against the chill. ‘But yeah, if you have to.’

 

Draco gave him a long, thoughtful look, letting his eyes then drift towards the line of the water in thought. ‘It wouldn’t seem right to.’

 

Harry looked up from where he’d been studying the grass ahead of them. ‘I think Minerva would be disappointed if you decided you didn’t want this, but she’d not ask you to stay if you didn’t.’

 

‘No,’ Draco agreed. ‘But, no, it’s not what I meant.’

 

‘Hmm?’

 

‘It wouldn’t seem right to leave you, now.’ Draco said, almost as if he was surprising himself. Harry’s stomach did a weird little jolt.

 

‘I, um. Don’t want you to leave,’ Harry offered back. There was a small silence in which they then both looked surprised.

 

Draco’s eyebrows pulled down in a thoughtful little frown, and he opened his mouth - and whatever he was going to say was abruptly interrupted by the appearance of the greater share of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, on their way to practice before dinner.

 

‘Harry!’ Penny greeted, a little breathlessly from further up the hill, squad in tow.  ‘I mean, Professors,’ she added sheepishly. ‘Will you come watch again?’

 

‘Erm,’ Harry looked awkwardly between Draco and the crew of gangly teens, feeling oddly like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Draco loped his shoulders in a shrug, pulling a face that seemed to convey something like ‘what can you do’. ‘’Course. Just no broken arms this time,’ he added with a smile.

 

‘I didn’t mean to,’ Henry piped up from Penny’s elbow in a familiar protest, and was shoved back for his trouble.

 

‘Definitely not,’ Penny confirmed, resolute. ‘And, um. Professor Malfoy,’ she added, with a little edge of nervousness that Harry politely pretended he didn’t hear, tamping down on giving a look of sympathy. Draco looked up, startled, from where he’d been hanging back at the edge of the conversation. ‘Could you fill in for chaser? Only, the Slytherins are stronger than us on the Quaffle and you’re the fastest flier.’

 

Harry pulled a pained face. ‘He thinks enough of himself as it is.’

 

‘I’d be delighted,’ Draco said, punctuating it with a quick elbow at Harry’s ribs.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

With a now more battle-hardened, experienced Harry as referee, the team and Draco came away from the practice with no more than a couple very nearly near misses and no broken bones among them. He followed Draco into the warm yellow light of the changing rooms, the last trailing student showered and dressed and already off towards the great hall for an early arrival to dinner, plans for an extensive tactical meeting ahead of them.

 

Draco tossed his light borrowed Quidditch cloak down onto the old slatted wooden bench, sitting next to it to card his fingers through hair damp from sweat and the spitting rain that had picked up as the daylight dimmed over the grounds. ‘It’s going to feel very unnatural, rooting for them this weekend.’

 

Harry brushed off his trousers, trying to shake away the gravel and grass he’d collected from kicking off harshly from the pitch more than once. ‘They deserve it,’ Harry said confidently. ‘Penny’s probably going to be winning the World Cup for us in ten years.’

 

‘Likely through just sheer determination,’ Draco agreed, with just an edge of fondness that made Harry smile. ‘It’s easier to see where the Sorting Hat was coming from with her.’

 

Harry nodded, leaning his elbow on his thigh. ‘Listen, I was thinking…’

 

‘Hmm?’ Draco started uncuffing his shirt.

 

Harry blanked a bit for a second, before shaking his head. ‘I reckon I should be doing my NEWTs too. Hermione will be.’

 

Draco paused in the middle of his front buttons. ‘Is this because of what I said? Harry, you don’t really need to.’

 

‘No, that’s the problem,’ Harry frowned. ‘I do. I’m not special, and they’re important qualifications professors need. I don’t want to act like I’m different.’

 

Draco thought about it for a moment, finishing his shirt but neglecting to shrug it off. ‘I can’t pretend I can see much point to it, especially since you’ve got a lifelong position here.’

 

‘I don’t want special favours,’ Harry added, a little weakly, since he knew the job itself was in many ways a special favour, and he still didn’t feel like he’d earned it.

 

‘Which ones were you going to do?’

 

‘Defence, transfiguration, charms, herbology,’ Harry listed. ‘And potions.’

 

Draco shot him a look, all raised eyebrows. ‘Ambitious.’

 

Harry pulled a face. ‘Maybe not all of them.’

 

‘It’s a lot of work,’ Draco admitted, as the shirt finally hit the bench. ‘Defence shouldn’t be that hard, and by doing your job you’re revising it anyway. NEWT level transfiguration might be a bit of a stretch, but not impossible,’ he added. ‘Potions you could do alongside me.’

 

‘I’d probably need much more help in lessons, to balance it,’ Harry realised, feeling a bit guilty.

 

‘Thank Merlin,’ Draco surprised him. ‘I was getting bored.’

 

‘Then that’s okay?’

 

‘It’s fine,’ Draco confirmed, slinking out of his trousers. Harry tried not to obviously avert his eyes. ‘We can talk to the Headmistress about it at dinner.’

 

Harry watched as he grabbed a towel and walked off around the corner towards the showers. He left his eyes hanging on the empty space for a few moments after he was gone, then shook his head and got on with undressing himself.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

By Friday afternoon, they had a clear outline of shared lesson plans and revision timetables that would have made as Hermione proud as if she’d organised it herself.

 

‘At least twice weekly potions practice,’ Draco reiterated with a jab at the sheets of parchment on his lap with a quill. ‘I’ve not brewed anything for months, and as far as I remember it, you were absolutely abysmal.’

 

‘Neville was the one who actually blew stuff up,’ Harry said, defensive. He tapped one finger rhythmically against his cup of tea, balanced on his chair arm. ‘I don’t think I ever managed anything actively dangerous.’

 

Draco gave him a sceptical look, swiping the end of the quill feather back and forth across his cheek. ‘Slughorn’s given us free use of the potions classroom on Tuesday evenings and Saturday, and you can go catch up with Flitwick on Wednesday lunches every week to ask him about charms like he offered.’

 

‘Transfiguration is definitely the hardest,’ Harry winced, remembering Minerva’s inscrutable face when he’d asked her, and the mound of books she’d wordlessly collected and dropped in his lap. ‘I’m probably going to have to spend all of the rest of my weekends practicing.’

 

‘So will I, so at least you’re in good company,’ Draco offered magnanimously.

 

Harry considered the scroll of parchment in his lap, personal revision scribbled in blue ink around the bold black of his teaching timetable. He resolutely tamped down on the rising feeling of regret in his stomach. ‘Well. If I fail, I haven’t actually lost anything.’

 

‘Exactly,’ Draco agreed. ‘Except the respect of all your students and the faculty.’

 

‘Malfoy, unhelpful.’

 

‘And likely Granger, and whatever the readership of the Prophet is, since this school apparently leaks information like a sieve.’

 

Harry just wordlessly groaned, turning to the simple comfort of his tea mug.

 

‘I almost forgot your weekly lesson with the seventh years in the greenhouses,’ Draco added with a bit too much enjoyment for Harry’s liking. He bent to write in where Harry would be sacrificing his Tuesday afternoon, and Harry watched the corresponding script scrawl to life on his own parchment. Draco paused, before completing it with a loopy little ‘HP’ and a lightning bolt. ‘Since I don’t have to be there.’

 

‘Yeah, right, you’re just rubbing it in now,’ Harry protested, smoothing down the paper. ‘What little symbol do you get, then?’

 

Draco tapped the quill to his chin. ‘I don’t need one. I’m not going to forget where to be.’

 

Harry shot him a grumpy look. He clunked down his tea onto the side table, before scooting to the edge of his seat and catching the quill end between two outstretched fingertips. After considering it a moment, he delicately penned a blocky ‘DM’ next to Draco’s arithmancy revision, and the curly ‘s’ shape of a doodled snake with a forked tongue. Pausing for a moment, he added two blotted dots for eyes and the tight ‘u’ of a smile.

 

‘Oh, how dignified,’ Draco said, watching the drawing appear. ‘You’ve completely captured me.’

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry had an unexpected and unwelcome wave of nostalgia and sympathy for his students as he pulled himself up to sit on the high stools of the potions classroom, watching Draco methodically tip a row of jars and check each label against the open page of a seventh year textbook.

 

‘Right,’ Draco said, punctuating it with the light slap of a palm onto a fastidiously clean workbench. ‘Since you didn’t want to start with Polyjuice because of ‘bad memories’,’ Harry nodded vigorously, ‘We’ve going to have to start with Amortentia. Since you can’t be trusted with anything with wormwood in it yet.’

 

Harry almost bristled with the matter-of-fact tone Draco was using as he rearranged the tools on the porcelain cutting board, before privately noting that he didn’t actually recognise a lot of the ingredients with the labels facing away. ‘You can’t blow up a love potion,’ he agreed, smirking at Draco’s look of judgement.

 

Draco rolled up the sharply ironed sleeves of his grey shirt, robes abandoned to his seat. ‘Just don’t chug this thing when Slughorn’s in the room, or I’ll need to vomit.’

 

Harry gave him a look. ‘I’m not as totally reckless as you make me out to be.’

 

‘We’ll see,’ Draco answered primly. ‘Can you manage to chop the herbs without stabbing yourself?’

 

‘Draaaco.’

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Two hours later, Harry would have to concede that maybe there was a kernel of truth to the criticism. Secretly. Where Draco couldn’t hear him.

 

‘I’m pretty sure last time I made this it didn’t go bright green,’ he mused, as Draco paused in rolling up his right sleeve for him to flip a tiny hourglass. The room was increasingly warm and stuffy from the high heat of the flames as they reached the near end of the brewing process.

 

‘I think we’ve discovered that’s what happens when you accidentally drop a copper knife into a love potion,’ Draco said wryly, patting his bicep to indicate he could relax his arm again. Harry worried his bottom lip with his teeth, sheepish.

 

‘To be fair, you were yelling at me.’

 

‘Mhm. What was it? ‘For the love of Merlin, Potter, don’t put the eggs in yet’?’

 

‘I didn’t put the eggs in,’ Harry shrugged, trying to buy some leeway with a hapless smile.

 

Draco snorted at him, hands on his hips as he considered the bench, covered in ingredients and equipment like the victim of a tiny natural disaster. ‘It shouldn’t bother it too much, if we put the pearls in at the right time and don’t over stir.’

 

Harry considered him from half perched on his stool, one foot firmly on the floor. ‘How do you know that stuff?’

 

‘How do you produce a patronus?’ Draco asked absently, flicking through the textbook. ‘It’s just practice.’

 

Harry considered him, sliding his other foot back and forth toe to heel on the stool bar. They’d had a patronus lesson with a fifth year class the previous day at last period, and even though the week had been tiring enough to weigh at his back Harry had been able to produce the bright white stag from his wand like he was greeting an old friend. It was the first lesson where they’d practiced spells where Draco had conspicuously committed himself to circling the room quietly, offering little comments on wand waving and stances, never attempting the spell himself.

 

Harry opened his mouth, but the question – what’s your happy thought? – died in his throat before Draco even turned to see him try.

 

It was too personal to ask. They were friends, but – that kind of thing scares people away.

 

‘How long?’ He asked instead, fidgeting with the tip of a small silver file.

 

Draco canted up on the toes of his brogues to look clear over the rim of the cauldron, tapping the timer base to the table between fingers. ‘Ten minutes, give or take. Less than one minute till the pearls. It’d be to the second if it wasn’t for –‘, he gave Harry a withering look, ‘- your ‘accident’.’

 

Harry just rolled his shoulders in a shrug, sheepish. ‘Slughorn’s going to mark it for us?’

 

Draco nodded, stepping forward, bowl in hand. As the last black grains of the timer bled down, he tipped the pearlescent powder into the murky green of the potion, combining with the sharp turns of seven stirs. The liquid built in a shimmer with the motion, and as the silver of the rod came to rest the potion had turned to the rainbow-silver sheen mother-of -pearl that Harry remembered.

 

‘Wasn’t that impressed when it was just me,’ Draco finally spoke, leaning his hip against the bench and crossing his arms. ‘Until he found out you were studying it too. Suddenly then the old bugger was jumping at it.’

 

Harry made a face. ‘Not very grateful, since you’re helping him back into retirement.’

 

‘I imagine he knows I’m not doing it for him,’ Draco smiled wryly.

 

‘Still.’ Harry picked at his empty left sleeve, pin-fixed as usual. His new normal. ‘Think I’ll be able to do this by myself ever?’

 

‘Next week you might have two hands, depending on Stamos,’ Draco reminded him. ‘Then you can go off ruining your own potions, and leave mine be.’

 

‘If I blow anything up, it’ll make sure it’s on my left.’

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Draco was carefully bottling a small sample of the opaque, pearly fluid when Slughorn appeared through the doorway, decked in quite garish red-brown weekend robes in a number of clashing patterns. ‘Boys, boys. What a dedication to magic! Harry, you were quite missed at the Three Broomsticks!’

 

Harry frowned, abashed, at the lack of reference to Draco, who was ignoring the interruption over the deliberate pouring of potion into vials. ‘Hullo, Professor. We’ve just been getting finished with Amortentia.’

 

‘Oh, excellent. Excellent! Just leave it on my desk, old boy. I’ll get to it sharpish – I’ve just got to dash along to grab a book for Rosmerta – she’s a terrible fan of Gilbergios classics, you know.’

 

Slughorn patted Harry a bit too hard on the shoulder as he passed, entirely ignorant to Draco, who had gone stiff at the name. Harry huffed in frustration as the Professor disappeared through the back office. ‘Draco –‘ he began, feeling a rushing need to apologise.

 

‘It’s fine,’ Draco flashed a defeated look over his shoulder, stopping the vials with little glass cones. ‘It’s not me that’s the affronted party.’

 

Harry huffed a breath through his nose. ‘Do you want me to clean up?’

 

‘Hmm? Oh, sure,’ Draco headed over to Slughorn’s large oak desk at the front of the room, slotting three samples into a stand for testing and picked up a quill to label the bottle adjacent.

 

While he was turned away and busy, Harry started floating tools to the sink and vanishing the remains of roots and stems from the ingredients. He grabbed the large porcelain chopping board, leaning over to stand up and slide it back on the shelf by hand.

 

He leant over the potion, stilling in the cauldron with the fire deadened and the surface oxidising to a glassier finish. Breathing in, he smelled the warmth still rising in hints of steam from the liquid – a warm, tangy scent of metal, maybe the cooling of the potion, mixed with the deep smell of broomstick wood like he remembered. There was also something different, new, something that he’d not had before – like a sharp scent of citrus – like lemon rind with sugar, a caramel…

 

Harry pulled back, abrupt, and vanished the potion with a flash of holly wood. He more firmly slotted the board back into place with his free fingers, and dropped back onto the stool. He had no idea what that was.

 

It wasn’t Ginny.

 

Draco clunked the potion bottle down onto the desk, loping back to pick up his satchel from the floor beside the desk. ‘Want to go get a drink?’

 

Harry nodded, snapping himself back into awareness. ‘Yep.’

 

 

* * *

 


End file.
